The Brooklyn Better Science Club

Making Science More Better For You 09/15/09

2009-09-15T13:23:00.000-07:00

This just in from the "It's warmer in the sun" school of science.

Spanking Found To Have Negative Effects On Low-income Toddlers

ScienceDaily (Sep. 15, 2009) — A new longitudinal study that looks at how low-income parents discipline their young children has found that spanking 1-year-olds leads to more aggressive behaviors and less sophisticated cognitive development in the next two years. Verbal punishment is not associated with such effects, especially when it is accompanied by emotional support from moms. In addition, 1-year-olds' fussiness predicted spanking and verbal punishment at ages 1, 2, and 3.

The study, which explored whether mothers' behaviors lead to problematic behavior in children, whether children's challenging behaviors elicit harsher discipline, or both, appears in the September/October 2009 issue of the journal Child Development. It was conducted by researchers at Duke University, the University of Missouri-Columbia, the University of South Carolina, Columbia University, Harvard University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Making Science More Better For You 08/18/09

2009-08-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

You mean there's a comet with donuts? Or maybe beer?

Comet Contains One of Life’s Precursors (Wired Science))

Scientists have discovered the amino acid glycine, a critical component of all living things, hiding in samples from the comet Wild 2.

It’s the first time an amino acid has been found inside a comet, and NASA scientists say the discovery supports the theory that some of the ingredients necessary for life originated in space and traveled to Earth by comet or meteorite.

“If you’re seeing amino acids in comets, then that really gives credence to the idea that the basic componenets of life are going to be widespread throughout the universe,” said planetary biologist Max Bernstein of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, who was not involved in the research. “It’s one thing for me to do it in the lab and say it should be so, but it’s another thing for somebody to actually measure it.”

Glycine was isolated from tiny samples of material collected from Wild 2 in 2004 by the NASA spacecraft Stardust. As the spacecraft flew through dense clouds of gas and dust surrounding the comet’s nucleus, a container of aerogel trapped particles from the comet. Since the aerogel capsule was parachuted to Earth in 2006, scientists have been racing to analyze the contents of the collected samples. Although preliminary reports indicated traces of glycine in the aerogel, researchers didn’t have enough aerogel sample to determine whether the amino acid was an Earthly contaminant or had truly come from space.

To get enough glycine for their analysis, the scientists actually analyzed the aluminum foil that lined the inside of the aerogel collection grid. Volatile gas particles had diffused through the aerogel and gotten stuck to the foil — but even the foil provided only a half a nanamole of glycine to work with, and it took the researchers two years to confirm that the glycine had extraterrestrial origins.

“What we did was look at the carbon isotopes,” said NASA scientist Jamie Elsila, who presented the work Sunday at the American Chemical Society meeting in Washington D.C. “The stuff on the Earth has a special signature, and the extraterrestrial signature is very different. When we looked at glycine and measured its carbon signature, we saw that it’s in the extraterrestrial range.”

Making Science More Better For You On 07/28/09

2009-07-28T10:05:00.000-07:00

Yeah, you try to explain causality to a headline writer. Go on, try it.

Blue M&Ms linked to reducing spine injury

(CNN) -- The same blue food dye found in M&Ms and Gatorade could be used to reduce damage caused by spine injuries, offering a better chance of recovery, according to new research.

Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center found that when they injected the compound Brilliant Blue G (BBG) into rats suffering spinal cord injuries, the rodents were able to walk again, albeit with a limp.

The only side effect was that the treated mice temporarily turned blue.

So, we guess that what we always heard about the green ones was true

Making Science More Better For You 07/27/09

2009-07-27T08:09:00.000-07:00

Back from a long spring hiatus..let's go right to the headlines of the day

Cops mace berserk groundhog after it tries to attack them (the Obscure Store)

This raises so many issues. How does one know when a groundhog has gone beserk? And are they really better with mace, as a opposed to sage or thyme?

Canary-fighting resulsts in 19 arrests. (CNN)
We can only guess that somebody sang....

Making Science More Better For You on 04/14/09

2009-04-14T13:18:00.000-07:00

Would that include prehistoric trash and prehistoric peanut butter?

Prehistoric Bears Ate Everything And Anything, Just Like Modern Cousins

ScienceDaily (Apr. 13, 2009) — By comparing the craniodental morphology of modern bear species to that of two extinct species, researchers from the University of Málaga have discovered that the expired plantigrades were not so different from their current counterparts. The cave bear, regarded as the great herbivore of the carnivores, was actually more omnivorous than first thought.

The short-faced bear, a hypercarnivore, also ate plants depending on their availability. The work offers key insights into the evolution of the carnivore niches during the Ice Age.

The team of palaeontologists have reconstructed the trophic ecology, or eating habits, of two extinct bear species that lived during the Pleistocene (between 2.59 million and 12,000 years ago): the short-faced bear (Arctodus simus) of North America and the cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) of Europe. The morphometric analysis carried out on the eight bear species in existence today has confirmed that prehistoric bears were not fussy eaters.

'Knowing what the extinct bears ate is of utmost relevance to finding out about the evolution of carnivore niches in the Pleistocene when climatic conditions were changing', explains Borja Figueirido, lead author of the study and researcher for the Ecology and Geology Department of the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Málaga. Scientists have discovered that, even at that time, bears were 'great opportunists' thanks to their morphological and ecological flexibility.

Trophic ecology and morphological flexibility. Yeah Dude, break me off some of that.

Making Science More Better For You on 04/09/09

2009-04-09T13:21:00.000-07:00

Headline of the day

Grandmother dies trying to stop sword fight (MSNBC)
Sadly, when you name one kid Darth and one kid Luke, this is what you get.

Making Science More Better For You on 04/03/09

2009-04-03T14:18:00.000-07:00

Dave, do these fiber optics make me look fat? What are you doing Dave?

Robot achieves scientific first

By Clive Cookson, Science Editor

Published: April 2 2009 19:17 | Last updated: April 2 2009 19:17

A laboratory robot called Adam has been hailed as the first machine in history to have discovered new scientific knowledge independently of its human creators.

Adam formed a hypothesis on the genetics of bakers’ yeast and carried out experiments to test its predictions, without intervention from its makers at Aberystwyth University.

The result was a series of “simple but useful” discoveries, confirmed by human scientists, about the gene coding for yeast enzymes. The research is published in the journal Science.

Professor Ross King, the chief creator of Adam, said robots would not supplant human researchers but make their work more productive and interesting.

“Ultimately we hope to have teams of human and robot scientists working together in laboratories,” he said.

Adam is the result of a five-year collaboration between computer scientists and biologists at Aberystwyth and Cambridge universities.

The researchers endowed Adam with a huge database of yeast biology, automated hardware to carry out experiments, supplies of yeast cells and lab chemicals, and powerful artificial intelligence software.

Interesting. A robot achieves limited consciousness and the first thing it does is try to figure out how to make beer.

Making Science More Better For You on 03/27/09

2009-03-27T13:38:00.000-07:00

Headlines of the day

What Separates Humans From Mice? Bigger, Faster Astrocytes In Brain. (Science Daily)

Gosh, we would have sworn it was the fact that Mickey only has three fingers.

ShamWow Guy Beats Up Cannibal Hooker (Gawker)
We all knew the whole "martini, bikini" bit would somehow go terribly wrong.

Making Science More Better For You on 03/24/09

2009-03-24T12:46:00.000-07:00

Headline of the day

Suicidal behavior may run in families (CNN)
Rather quickly, we assume.

Making Science More Better For You on 03/17/09

2009-03-17T10:38:00.000-07:00

Another argument for keeping the drinking age just where it is
Young Dinosaurs Roamed Together, Died Together

ScienceDaily (Mar. 16, 2009) — A herd of young birdlike dinosaurs met their death on the muddy margins of a lake some 90 million years ago, according to a team of Chinese and American paleontologists that excavated the site in the Gobi Desert in western Inner The sudden death of the herd in a mud trap provides a rare snapshot of social behavior. Composed entirely of juveniles of a single species of ornithomimid dinosaur (Sinornithomimus dongi), the herd suggests that immature individuals were left to fend for themselves when adults were preoccupied with nesting or brooding.

"There were no adults or hatchlings," said Paul Sereno, professor at the University of Chicago and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence. "These youngsters were roaming around on their own," remarked Tan Lin, from the Department of Land and Resources of Inner Mongolia.

They were probably headed back from the party over at the raptors.

So my parents send a balloon into the upper stratosphere and all I get are these lousy bacteria
Scientists find new bacteria species
NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- Indian scientists have discovered three new species of bacteria in Earth's upper stratosphere that are resistant to ultraviolet radiation, researchers said.

The bacteria do not match any species found on Earth. They were found in samples that scientists collected when they sent a balloon into the stratosphere, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) said in a statement Monday.

That layer of the Earth receives heavy doses of ultraviolet radiation, enough to kill most organisms.

In their analyses of the retrieved samples, microbiologists detected 12 bacterial and six fungal colonies.

Of them, three bacterial colonies were new species, the ISRO said.

Indian scientists named one of them Janibacter hoylei, after astrophysicist Fred Hoyle.

"While the present study does not conclusively establish the extraterrestrial origin of microorganisms, it does provide positive encouragement to continue the work in our quest to explore the origin of life," the ISRO said.

Let's get this right. These are bacteria that don't match anything found here on earth and weren't killed by heavy doses of ultraviolet radiation and these guys are happy that they brought them back. They think this is a good idea. Really. These sound like the same people that liked Cloverfield.

Making Science More Better For You on 03/04/09

2009-03-04T10:32:00.000-08:00

Headline of the day

Male fish increasingly looking like ladies — but why? (MSNBC)
That's easy. Free drinks at happy hour.

Man: I'm not the first guy to put a cat into a big bong! (The Obscure Store/Romenesko)
Right, Da Vinci, Copernicus and U. S. Grant are all said to have had their cat in the bong period. Dr. Seuss too. In fact, you could come up with a kind of big bong theory......

Making Science More Better For You on 02/27/09

2009-02-27T13:30:00.000-08:00

Headlines of the day

Octopus pulls plug, floods aquarium (CNN)
When octopi fish with M-80s....

Axl Rose says Slash is ‘a cancer’(MSNBC)
It's the nose ring, isn't it?

That Napoleonic code sure is different.
Woman answers ad for bird by offering kids as payment

(CNN) -- Trading two children for a bird landed three people in jail in Louisiana, authorities say.The biological mother, who was not involved in the alleged trade, is to be interviewed by authorities Friday. Investigators seek further details about a case that they say unfolded this way:

Paul and Brandy Romero advertised that they were selling their pet cockatoo for $1,500.

A woman named Donna Greenwell responded and said she wanted to buy the bird. Greenwell then told the Romeros that she was taking care of three children whose biological parents were going through a separation.

Greenwell proposed selling two of the couple's children to the Romeros for $2,000, saying that her job as a truck driver made it hard to take care of the children, said Capt. Keith Dupre of the Evangeline Parrish Sheriff's Office in Louisiana.

The parties allegedly negotiated a trade involving the two kids, the bird and $175.

An anonymous tipster contacted authorities after the children began living with the Romeros.
And that's how Bobby Jindal got elected...

Making Science More Better For You on 02/26/09

2009-02-26T13:23:00.000-08:00

So a Frenchman, a German and four Russians climb into a small room...

Europe names crew for Mars 'mission' (Breitbart.com)

The European Space Agency (ESA) on Friday named a Frenchman and a German who will join four Russians in an innovative 105-day isolation experiment to test whether humans can one day fly to Mars.

From March 31, the six "crew" will be locked inside a special facility in Moscow that replicates conditions of a space trip to Mars.

The simulation will be followed by a 520-day experiment, starting later this year, that would last as long as a real mission to Mars.

The two Europeans are Oliver Knickel, 28, a mechanical engineer in the German army, and Cyrille Fournier, 40, a captain with Air France who flies A320 airliners, ESA said in a press release.

The distance between Earth and Mars varies between 55 million kilometres (34 million miles) and more than 400 million kms (250 million miles).

Using current rocket technology, a there-and-back trip to the Red Planet would take at least 18 months.
No Brit? Who's going to cook?

Making Science More Better For You on 02/24/09

2009-02-24T10:15:00.000-08:00

Headlines of the day

Reward offered for arrest in theft of 10,000 pounds of pecans (El Paso Times.com)
Not for nuthin', but we just saw a tanker truck full of Karo syrup headed in that direction.

Fed chief: U.S. suffering 'severe contraction. (MSNBC)
You mean like can't, don't or won't? Or maybe you're going for more of a Lamaze hook.

NASA's global warming satellite falls to Earth (MSNBC)
We bet they were aiming for that big "X" on Al Gore's house.

’

Making Science More Better For You on 02/23/09

2009-02-23T11:59:00.000-08:00

Headine of the day

Nude man Tasered going to Bay City church (MLIVE.com)

Consider how the lilies grow. They don't work or spin yarn, but I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. Luke 12:27

And that's when Mae West said, "Are you happy to see me or is that a stamen your pocket?

Making Science More Better For You on 02/18/09

2009-02-18T10:07:00.000-08:00

Headline of the day

Indian boy marries dog to ward off tiger attacks (MSNBC)
And the dish ran away with the spoon. At least there's no monkey business.

Making Science More Better For You on 02/17/09

2009-02-17T12:34:00.000-08:00

Headlines of the day

Rampaging chimp was given Xanax for anxiety (MSNBC)
Why couldn't he stick to booze like the rest of us monkeys?

Pa. woman to stand trial for selling pierced cats (AP)
"I call this one Trent."

Making Science More Better For You on 02/11/09

2009-02-11T11:54:00.000-08:00

Hey kids, who wants to see how we make musk?
Zoorotica program at Binder Park Zoo

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. (NEWSCHANNEL 3) - Chocolate and flowers are nice, but this Valentine's Day why not take your honey for a walk on the wild side?
"We're going to talk about animal reproduction, the different animals here at Binder Park Zoo and their little quirks, different things that get them going to help them reproduce," said Jenny Parnett of Binder Park Zoo. It's a Valentine's Day date that's sure to ruffle some feathers.
Binder Park Zoo says love birds are flocking to sign up for the Zoorotica program. From frolicking frogs to the love-lives of leopards, this will give you an intimate look at animal mating rituals.The R-rated show lets you go where no zoo guests have gone before.
Tickets are sold out, but there is a waiting list. Just call the zoo office to add your name.

You can call it science if you want to. We just think pimpin' is pimpin.

Making Science More Better For You on 02/10/09

2009-02-10T13:47:00.000-08:00

Headline of the day
Human hair found in prehistoric hyena poop (Discovery.com/MSNBC)
By Jennifer Viegas

Hairs that likely belonged to humans living 195,000 to 257,000 years ago in Africa have been identified in fossilized brown hyena dung, according to a new study that describes the first non-bony material in the early human fossil record.

Until now, the oldest known human hairs were from a 9,000-year-old Chinchorro mummy from Arica, northern Chile. This latest discovery, made at Gladysvale cave, South Africa, exceeds the mummy's age by about 200,000 years.

Clearly, prehistoric hyenas were no laughing matter.

Making Science More Better For You on 02/09/08

2009-02-09T13:45:00.000-08:00

Science finds the secret of a hot kiss (Times On Line)

A meeting of lips can spark a chain of chemical changes that really turn your head
Jonathan Leake

IF you always thought you had a special chemistry with your loved one, you may finally have been proved right.

Researchers have found that a passionate kiss unleashes a complex chemical surge into the brain which makes a lover feel excited, happy or relaxed.

There is also speculation that this hormone release may be triggered directly by an exchange of sexually stimulating pheromones in the saliva.

“This study shows kissing is much more complex and causes hormonal changes and things we never thought occurred,” said Wendy Hill, professor of psychology at Lafayette College, Pennsylvania, in an interview.

We always thought the secret ingredients were lobster and bling.

Making Science More Better For You on 02/06/09

2009-02-06T13:21:00.000-08:00

Headline of the day

Couple loves cloned best friend (CNN)
That's only because he always picks up the check.

Bones of first theater critic unearthed
Origin Of Claws Seen In Fossil 390 Million Years Old

ScienceDaily (Feb. 6, 2009) — A missing link in the evolution of the front claw of living scorpions and horseshoe crabs was identified with the discovery of a 390 million-year-old fossil by researchers at Yale and the University of Bonn, Germany.

The specimen, named Schinderhannes bartelsi, was found fossilized in slate from a quarry near Bundenbach in Germany, a site that yields spectacularly durable pyrite-preserved fossils — findings collectively known as the Hunsrück Slate. The Hunsrück Slate has previously produced some of the most valuable clues to understanding the evolution of arthropods – including early shrimp-like forms, a scorpion and sea spiders as well as the ancient arthropods trilobites.

We bet the football team will be called "the fighting robots."
Singularity University Founded by NASA, Google

Google and NASA have partnered to create a school called
Singularity University Founded by NASA, Google
Singularity University. The school, to be headed by Ray Kurzweil, will prepare scientists and others to deal with the effects of technological change. Kurzweil will serve as Chancellor.

Ray Kurzweil is the author of The Singularity is Near, a somewhat controversial book that suggests, among other things, that by the middle of this century computers will outstrip humans and humans will be able to use genetics and nanotechnology to directly affect its own evolution, achieving a kind of physical immortality. The establishment of the Singularity University by a government agency, NASA, and a private company, Google, suggests a growing acceptance of Ray Kurzweil's ideas.

We also think the school cheer will be "John Connor Must Die."

Making Science More Better For You on 01/28/09

2009-01-28T10:20:00.000-08:00

Today's headlines

Doc’s confession: We made up ‘cello scrotum’ (MSNBC)
They had no comment, however, on either ‘tambourine testicles’ or ‘bass balls.”

Making Science More Better For You on 01/27/09

2009-01-27T09:46:00.000-08:00

Today's headlines
Blowfish testicles poison 7 diners in Japan (MSNBC)
Balls, you say. Fish balls? Oh so that's where they come from.

Researchers Explore What Contemporary Science Cannot Explain (Science Daily)
That should keep them busy for a week or two.

Dead athletes' brains show stunning damage (CNN)
Yo dude, they are dead after all.

Battling Addiction: Are 12 Steps Too Many? (Time)
Well, that all depends on what's in the fridge, doesn't it?

Quick, get under the cloak of invisibility
New Tactics To Tackle Bystander’s Role In Bullying

ScienceDaily (Jan. 27, 2009) — A new psychodynamic approach to bullying in schools has been successfully trialled by UCL (University College London) and US researchers. CAPSLE (Creating a Peaceful School Learning Environment) is a groundbreaking method focused more on the bystander, including the teacher, than on the bully or the victim.

The study, published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, shows that an easily implemented school-wide intervention focussing on empathy and power dynamics can reduce children’s experiences of aggression in school and improve classroom behaviour.

...a groundbreaking method focused more on the bystander, including the teacher, than on the bully or the victim.
They focused on the bystanders because the bystanders were too timid to tell the researchers to get lost.

…. CAPSLE made no attempt to focus on helping disturbed children individually or picking them out for treatment. It did not set explicit rules against bullying, nor did it advocate any special treatment for bullying children. Nevertheless, over time the study found that bullies came to be disempowered, initially complaining that the programme was boring and should be stopped until gradually the social system tended to recruit them into more helpful roles…..

No, but they did manage to get some grant money for the research, so it’s not like it was two years wasted. Plus, the thought boredom as an intervention technique that leads to "disempowerment "is really high concept—if only we knew what that meant.

gradually the social system tended to recruit them (bullies) into more helpful roles…..

Yeah, we’re sure they were real helpful. Hope the researchers realize that they're not getting their lunch money back, ever. Don't you just love it when somebody's therapy session gets dressed up as a groundbreaking study?

Making Science More Better For You on 01/26/09

2009-01-26T09:37:00.000-08:00

Headlines of the day

Goat starts fire; cat warns family (CNN)
The cheese stands alone.

Early farmers bred different coloured animals for their own amusement (Telegraph.co.uk)
More evidence of the early hemp economy.

Infidelity Produces Faster Sperm, Swedish Fish Study Finds (Science Daily)
Just in case you're thinking of having an affair with a Swedish fish.

No question, they’ve got you coming and going
Frequent Sex And Masturbation In 20s And 30s Linked To Higher Prostate Cancer, But Risks Diminish With Age

ScienceDaily (Jan. 26, 2009) — Men who are very sexually active in their twenties and thirties are more likely to develop prostate cancer, especially if they masturbate frequently, according to a study of more than 800 men.

However the UK research team also found that frequent sexual activity in a man’s forties appears to have little effect and even small levels of activity in a man’s fifties could offer protection from the disease. Most of the differences were attributed to masturbation rather than sexual intercourse.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars. Rather, like most things, it’s all in the wrist…ours or someone else’s.

Making Science More Better For You on 01/07/09

2009-01-07T10:34:00.000-08:00

New Year/New Headlines/Same Old Humans

'Jealous wife' charged after fatal genitals fire (MSNBC)
She said she just wanted to burn his penis so it would belong to her and no one else. Just as well. He probably didn't have much use for it anymore.

Police: Angry Ohio boy, 4, shoots baby sitter (AP)
Hey, I got your "bed time" right here.

Colo. woman accused of cannibalism 'deeply ashamed' (The Denver Post)
So, when did they make a board game out of the Donner Party?

Islamic militants ridicule death of Bush cat (AP)
We're glad they have their political priorities in order.

Porn industry seeks federal bailout (CNN)
We think there's a joke somewhere in here about the government blowing money...somewhere.

Husband Wants Kidney Back from Wife (WCBS)
Sure, we'll say it. This guy must really have some stones.

Making Science More Better For You 12/17/08

2008-12-17T13:51:00.000-08:00

Headline of the day

Heart found in Paw Paw car wash (WWMT.com)
Hot wax is extra.

Making Science More Better For You 12/09/08

2008-12-09T13:49:00.000-08:00

Headlines of the day

Woman smuggles monkey to U.S. under blouse (MSNBC)
We hear they met online.

Giant mutant potato weights 22 lbs. (CNN)
And you thought the steroid era was over.

Monkey Meat Is Confiscated At Dulles (Washington Post)
Monkey Meat—a great name for a band or what?

Making Science More Better For You 12/05/08

2008-12-05T11:45:00.000-08:00

Headlines of the day

Man dies after EMTs suggest antacids (CNN)
Try these. The green ones always worked for me.

City says pizzeria butchered deer; manager claims misunderstanding (The morning call.com)
So, how many toppings do you have here?

Making Science More Better For You 12/02/08

2008-12-02T11:45:00.000-08:00

Headline of the day

Your brooding teen: Just moody or mentally ill? (MSNBC)
We think the correct answer is yes.

Making Science More Better For You 11/20/08

2008-11-20T11:30:00.000-08:00

Headline of the day

Indian man dies in pie-eating contest (ValleyWag)
Some jobs just shouldn't be outsourced

Finally, a use for all the Cabbo Wabbo that never sold.

Mexican scientists turn tequila into diamonds (USA Today)

It's said these "tequila diamonds" aren't suitable for jewelry, but they could be used to "detect radiation, coat cutting tools or, above all, as a substitute for silicon in the computer chips of the future."

Making Science More Better For You 11/19/08

2008-11-19T13:42:00.000-08:00

Headline of the day

Undercover officers use Taser on pallbearer (AP) Yeah, some days are like that.

Making Science More Better For You on 11/18/08

2008-11-18T10:11:00.000-08:00

Headlines of the day

Vicar hospitalised with potato up his bum (Metro.co.uk)
The report went on to say, “He explained to me, quite sincerely, he had been hanging curtains naked in the kitchen when he fell backwards on to the kitchen table and on to a potato.” This reminds us of an old joke that involved a proctologist, a dozen roses and a note.

Fast-food order may have led to father-son shooting (Chron.com)
Sounds like someone wanted it his way.

Polish foreign minister: Obama's grandfather was a cannibal! (Drudge)
That’s nothing. We hear the foreign minister’s grandfather was Polish.

Scoop: Spears to appear at 30 Rock tree lighting (MSNBC)
Hope they told her this has nothing to do with firing up a blunt.

Breaking News—Sad people will stare at anything. Also, happily married couples have more sex. Honest. Film at 11 (No, not that kind of film)....

Study: Unhappy people watch more TV (James Hibberd thr.com)

An extensive new research study has found that unhappy people watch more TV while those consider themselves happy spend more time reading and socializing.

The University of Maryland analyzed 34 years of data collected from more than 45,000 participants and found that watching TV might make you feel good in the short term but is more likely to lead to overall unhappiness.

"The pattern for daily TV use is particularly dramatic, with 'not happy' people estimating over 30% more TV hours per day than 'very happy' people," the study says. "Television viewing is a pleasurable enough activity with no lasting benefit, and it pushes aside time spent in other activities -- ones that might be less immediately pleasurable, but that would provide long-term benefits in one’s condition. In other words, TV does cause people to be less happy."

The study, published in the December issue of Social Indicators Research, analyzed data from thousands of people who recorded their daily activities in diaries over the course of several decades. Researchers found that activities such as sex, reading and socializing correlated with the highest levels of overall happiness.

Watching TV, on the other hand, was the only activity that had a direct correlation with unhappiness.

"TV is not judgmental nor difficult, so people with few social skills or resources for other activities can engage in it," says the study. "Furthermore, chronic unhappiness can be socially and personally debilitating and can interfere with work and most social and personal activities, but even the unhappiest people can click a remote and be passively entertained by a TV. In other words, the causal order is reversed for people who watch television; unhappiness leads to television viewing."

Making Science More Better For You 11/14/08

2008-11-14T11:07:00.000-08:00

Headlines of the day

Beer truck driver apparently drunk at time of I-70 accident (Rocky Mtn News)
There’s a joke about carrying coal to Newcastle in here somewhere.

Villagers steal Russian church — brick by brick (MSNBC)
So, that's where Legos come from.

But humans are much more evolved. No, really.

Fish choose Their Leaders By Consensus

ScienceDaily (Nov. 14, 2008) — Just after Americans have headed to the polls to elect their next president, a new report in the November 13th issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, reveals how one species of fish picks its leaders: Most of the time they reach a consensus to go for the more attractive of two candidates.

"It turned out that stickleback fish preferred to follow larger over smaller leaders," said Ashley Ward of Sydney University. "Not only that, but they also preferred fat over thin, healthy over ill, and so on. The part that really caught our eye was that these preferences grew as the group size increased, through some kind of positive social feedback mechanism."

Fish follow leaders, ain't got no parkin' meters.....

Now you know what happened to all those old lava lamps.
Mysterious glowing aurora over Saturn confounds scientists

By Daily Mail Reporter

A stunning light display over Saturn has stumped scientists who say it behaves unlike any other planetary aurora known in our solar system.

The blueish-green glow was found over the ringed planet's north polar region just like Earth's northern lights.

It was discovered by the infrared instruments on NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

The northern polar region of Saturn shows both the aurora and underlying atmosphere, as captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft

'We've never seen an aurora like this elsewhere,' said Tom Stallard, a scientist working with Cassini data at the University of Leicester.

'This aurora covers an enormous area across the pole. Our current ideas on what forms Saturn's aurora predict that this region should be empty, so finding such a bright aurora here is a fantastic surprise.'

Making Science More Better For You on 11/12/08

2008-11-12T10:32:00.000-08:00

Headlines of the day

After a year of hiccups, man ready to die (CNN)
Guess it’s been more than he could swallow.

Boxing gym in Ohio hit by thieves who steal ring (SI)
Sounds like the plot for "Rocky 8.6." Anybody seen that Stallone guy lately?

Gay rights protesters disrupt Sunday service (LSJ.com)
So, how long have you folks been in marketing?

Are they out to get you? Paranoia on the rise (MSNBC)
Burroughs said," a paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on."
"What a field day for the heat..."

Making Science More Better For You on 11/11/08

2008-11-11T13:04:00.000-08:00

Headlines of the day

Man's coffin kills wife on way to cemetery (MSNBC)
"Do not go gently into that...hey, look out."

Missing 150-year-old tortoise is back home (SF Gate)
It turns out that he was missing for six weeks. He would have been there sooner but, well, he is a tortoise after all.

Making Science More Better For You on 11/04/08

2008-11-04T10:40:00.000-08:00

Headlines of the day

Party Host In Manatee Arrested After Guest Loses His Ear (TBO.COM)
Now that's a party. It's not easy keeping the correct meth to Bud ratio.

Nudists want to vote in the buff (CNN)
We're not going to make any jokes about pulling the lever, not us.

Flag-waving gunman closes Calif. highway for hours (AP)
Police identified the man as 28-year-old Eddie Van Tassel, proving that you can't make up the good ones.

A political interlude recycled from this past January
(It seems appropriate)

Senator Patrick Leahy’s (D-Vermont) recent endorsement of Barack Obama offered the candidate more than just the support of a member of the Senate’s old guard.

It also provided Senator Obama with entree to an relatively untilled voting block—Grateful Dead fans. Leahy is perhaps the most visible “Dead Head” among politicians.” He has been known to play “Truckin’” at his post-election rallies, claims “Black Muddy River” as his favorite song and sent a congratulatory video to Bob Weir when the band received a Lifetime Achieve Award at the 2002 Jammy’s. Please, no pajama jokes. It’s been done.

While Senator John Kerry’s endorsement brought with it a gilded rolodex and held the potential of access to George Soros and the like, Leahy’s offers the chance to all patchoulied up with folks like “The Grilled Cheese Guy” and several young ladies who go by the sobriquet “Moonbeam.”

It also offers the rest of us the hope that, should he win, the new President might deliver an inaugural speech that goes something like this.

My fellow citizens.

“Well the first days are the hardest days, don't you worry any more,
'Cause when life looks like Easy Street, there is danger at your door.
Think this through with me, let me know your mind,
Wo, oh, what I want to know, is are you kind?”

“Who can deny, who can deny, it's not just a change in style?
One step down and another begun and I wonder how many miles.”

“See here how everything led up to this day,
And it's just like any other day that's ever been.
Sun going up and then the sun going down.”

“I have spent my life seeking all that's still unsung.
Bent my ear to hear the tune, and closed my eyes to see.
When there was no strings to play, you played to me.”

“Sometimes the light's all shinin' on me;
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me What a long, strange trip it's been.”

“I love you all, but Jesus loves you the best”
And I bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight.”

Oh, and one more thing… we think he's going to "get a miracle."

Peace out Yo

Making Science More Better For You on 11/03/08

2008-11-03T13:32:00.000-08:00

Headline of the day
Ex-Playboy bunny faces cat cruelty charges (CNN)
Sounds like a case for Dr. Moreau.

Making Science More Better For You on 10/29/08

2008-10-29T12:31:00.000-07:00

Headlines of the day

Fish receives hernia operation in London. (Drudge)
So, do you think the surgeon worked for scale?

Funeral home hires Elvis impersonator for open house (The Obscure Store)
Sounds like they were caught in a trap.

Making Science More Better For You on 10/27/08

2008-10-27T10:29:00.000-07:00

A political interlude...

According to a report on CNN's Web site, Governor Palin's supporters said she's not very good with 'process questions." We suspect that the process that seems to make her so uncomfortable is the one usually referred to as thought.

Recent headlines of note..

St. Lucie firefighter allegedly walks off with crash victim's foot(TC Palm)
We know, you're waiting for a joke about a hotfoot, right?

Italian plumbing bungle turns water into wine (DECANTER.COM)
According to Adriano Palozzi, mayor of Marino, "People were calling it a miracle which it wasn't – it was a mistake." Sure thing mayor. God said the same thing about miracles.

Probation officer in miniskirt charged with DUI, drug possession (Newsherald.com)

Does drinking alcohol shrink your brain? (CNN)

Space Smells Of Steak Syays NASA (the Sun)
So, like you need more proof that God eats meat?

Woman Wearing Cow Suit Charged With Disorderly Conduct (WLWT.com)
Udderely rediculous....

Grandma with five dead husbands freed (CNN)
On is an event, two is a coincidence, three is a pattern, five is a retirement plan.

Study: Urban bears are fatter, die earlier (CNN)
That's because they probably sleep less. You know, all the noise

Math mistake sees hundreds of teachers laid off/ The deficit was caused by a massive miscalculation in the budget, CNN affiliate WFAA-TV reported.
We heard they were multiplying and forgot to carry the incompetent.

Ten fossils that evolved the tale of our origins (MSNBC)
OK, We've got Wilfred Brimley, Joan Rivers and Sen Robert Byrd. Who are the others?

Oh yeah, we're back. More later.

Making Science More Better For You on 09/24/08

2008-09-24T10:41:00.000-07:00

Headlines of the day

Rubber ducks aid climate research (CNN)
Mostly with their money. You know, the royalties from that Rubber Duckie song.

Pig holds woman prisoner in her house (CNN)
Two legs or four?

Homeland Security Detects Terrorist Threats by Reading Your Mind (Fox News)
You mean, "God, I'm hung over-nice ass-if only the Mets had a closer-Wake me up before you go go-what ever happened to her-you moron-I like tater tots-hope i'm not late-why did Sister Norbert say that in Latin class-I gotta eat something." could get us pulled out of line? Don't you just hate it when Dylan is right?

Making Science More Better For You on 09/23/08

2008-09-23T06:55:00.000-07:00

Headline of the day

Abe Vigoda still alive, thank you very much (CNN)

We're going to avoid the obvious "sounds fishy" line. We are however, pleased that while the world crumbles around us, CNN is keeping us posted on Tessio's health. While we're at it, how's Hal Linden doing?

Making Science More Better For You on 09/19/08

2008-09-19T09:58:00.000-07:00

Headlines of the day

Brother says he was stabbed over Hot Pocket (South Bend Tribune.com)

Wife and husband charged in brawl at baby shower (The Salt Lake Tribune)
Brawl and Bawl?

Va. town tries to prove existence of 'ghost cats' (AP)
Okay, here's the pitch. I got it. Picture a musical that's a cross between Ghost and Cats. Huge I tell ya.

Looters dig for nickels at crash site (CNN)
About that economic recovery plan...

Does That Phelps Guy Know About This?
It’s All In The Hips: Early Whales Used Well Developed Back Legs For Swimming, Fossils Show

ScienceDaily (Sep. 18, 2008) — The crashing of the enormous fluked tail on the surface of the ocean is a “calling card” of modern whales. Living whales have no back legs, and their front legs take the form of flippers that allow them to steer. Their special tails provide the powerful thrust necessary to move their huge bulk. Yet this has not always been the case.

Reporting in the latest issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, paleontologist Mark D. Uhen of the Alabama Museum of Natural History describes new fossils from Alabama and Mississippi that pinpoint where tail flukes developed in the evolution of whales.

“We know that the earliest whales were four-footed, semi-aquatic animals, and we knew that some later early whales had tail flukes, but we didn’t know exactly when the flukes first arose,” said Uhen. “Now we do.”

The most complete fossil described in the study is a species called Georgiacetus vogtlensis. Although not new to science, the new fossils provide some very significant new information. In particular, previously unknown bones from the tail show that it lacked a tail fluke. On the other hand, it did have large back feet and Uhen suggests that it used them as hydrofoils. Undulating the body in the hip region was the key factor in the evolution of swimming.

Making Science More Better For You on 09/16/08

2008-09-16T07:46:00.000-07:00

Headline of the day

Naked man walking dog Tasered by Tallahassee police
(Tallahasse.com)

Making Science More Better For You on 09/05/08

2008-09-05T08:58:00.000-07:00

Headlines of the day

Pregnant ex allegedly bit off new girlfriend's finger (Madison.com)

What? You never heard of a craving?

Cops kick in door over bird’s cries for help (MSNBC)

Elephant cured of heroin addiction (The Star.com of Toronto
>

"It's all happenin' at the zoo"...Oh, that's what they meant.

Puff the Magic Dragon declined comment.

This just in…Given half a chance kids will stay up later than they should. Film at 11. Science Marches On…

Children With TVs Or Computers In Their Room Sleep Less

ScienceDaily (Sep. 5, 2008) — Middle school children who have a television or computer in their room sleep less during the school year, watch more TV, play more computer games and surf the net more than their peers who don't – reveals joint research conducted by the University of Haifa and Jezreel Valley College.

The research, conducted by Prof. Yael Latzer and Dr. Tamar Shochat of the University of Haifa and Prof. Orna Chishinsky of the Jezreel Valley College, examined 444 middle school pupils with an average age of 14. The children were asked about their sleep habits, their use of computer and television, and their eating habits while watching TV or using the computer.

The study participants reported an average bedtime of 11:04 P.M and wake-up time of 6:45 A.M. On the weekends, the average bedtime was somewhat later – at 1:45 A.M. and wake-up much later – at 11:30 A.M. Those children with TVs or computers in their room went to sleep half an hour later on average but woke up at the same time.

According to the study, middle school pupils watch a daily average of two hours and 40 minutes of TV and use their computer for three hours and 45 minutes. On weekends, they watch half an hour more TV than during the rest of the week and use their computers for four hours. Children with a TV in their room watch an hour more than those without and those with their own computer use it an hour more than their peers.

A fifth of pupils said they ate in front of the TV set on a regular basis, while 70 percent said they did so only occasionally. Only 10% reported never eating in front of the TV. Computers were considered to be a less attractive eating place, with only 10% eating in front of the computer on a regular basis, 40% occasionally, and half never eating there.

But how will they learn to be good consumers if they don't eat in front of the TV? If they're not there it means they're missing ads.

Making Science More Better For You on 09/03/08

2008-09-03T10:39:00.000-07:00

Headline of the day
Taser ends emu scamper on Pennsylvania Turnpike
(Pittsburgh Tribune Review)

Well yeah, if you stay in base ten they do ok.

Elephants show flair for arithmetic

Leo Lewis in Tokyo (Times Online.UK)

The elephant's memory is legendary, but in a large, grey surprise to science the mighty Asian elephant turns out to have a distinct flair for maths as well

Under carefully controlled experimental conditions — essentially comprising a large cage and two buckets of assorted fruit — one elephant at Ueno Zoo in Tokyo managed to get its sums right 87 per cent of the time. A slightly less gifted pachyderm across the country in Kyoto scored a still respectable 69 per cent.

The curiously accurate adding skills of Elephas maximus have been discovered by Naoko Irie, a behavioural ecologist at the University of Tokyo putting the finishing touches to her doctoral thesis. In her tests, three apples were dropped into one bucket and five into a second one next to it. Two more apples were added to each bucket, leaving the first with five and the second with seven apples.

Unable to see inside the buckets or probe them with her trunk, 30-year old Ashiya selected the bucket with the more apples having, apparently, counted the contents of each as it was being loaded-up with fruit. Nothing spectacularly rare about that, say scientists – plenty of animals have been shown to possess basic counting abilities but most animals fail when the numbers get much bigger than three or four or the margin of difference between the available choices become too narrow.

“I couldn’t believe it at first,” said Irie, “They could instantly compare numbers like six and five."

The elephants she subjected to the fruit-based arithmetic tests were as good at telling the difference between five and six as they were at spotting that five is greater than one, she said.

Speculation among scientists over why the elephant should have developed its limited but nonetheless impressive mathematical ability centres on the way in which the lumbering creatures move in herds. A basic counting ability, say experts, might act as a guarantee that no calf is left behind.

To be on the safe side, we suggest you don’t eat the ones with three eyes.

Clones' offspring may be in food supply: FDA

By Christopher Doering

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Food and milk from the offspring of cloned animals may have entered the U.S. food supply, the U.S. government said on Tuesday, but it would be impossible to know because there is no difference between cloned and conventional products.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in January meat and milk from cloned cattle, swine and goats and their offspring were as safe as products from traditional animals. Before then, farmers and ranchers had followed a voluntary moratorium on the sale of clones and their offspring.

While the FDA evaluated the safety of food from clones and their offspring, the U.S. Agriculture Department was in charge of managing the transition of these animals into the food supply.

"It is theoretically possible" offspring from clones are in the food supply, said Siobhan DeLancey, an FDA spokeswoman.

Cloning animals involves taking the nuclei of cells from adults and fusing them into egg cells that are implanted into a surrogate mother. There are an estimated 600 cloned animals in the United States.

Proponents, including the Biotechnology Industry Organization, say cloning is a way to create more disease-resistant animals that produce more milk and better meat. The cloning industry and the FDA say cloned animals and their offspring are as safe as their traditional counterparts.

Critics contend not enough is known about the technology to ensure it is safe, and they also say the FDA needs to address concerns over animal cruelty and ethical issues.

"It worries me that this technology is out of control in so many ways," said Charles Margulis, a spokesman with the Center for Environmental Health. The possibility of offspring being in the food supply "is just another element of that," he said.

FDA and USDA have said it is impossible to differentiate between cloned animals, their offspring and conventionally bred animals, making it difficult to know if offspring are in the food supply.

"But they would be a very limited number because of the very few number of clones that are out there and relatively few of those clones are at an age where they would be parenting," said Bruce Knight, USDA's undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs.

As the FDA unveiled its final rule, USDA in January asked producers to prolong the ban on selling products from cloned animals. That ban did not extend to meat and milk from the clone's offspring.

Major food companies including Tyson Foods Inc, the largest U.S. meat company, and Smithfield Foods Inc have said they would avoid using cloned animals because of safety concerns.

The list grew on Tuesday after the Center for Food Safety and Friends of the Earth said 20 food producers and retailers vowed not to use ingredients from cloned animals.

The list, provided by the two groups, included Kraft Foods Inc, General Mills Inc, Campbell Soup Co, Nestle SA, California Pizza Kitchen Inc and Supervalu Inc.

In a letter to the Center for Food Safety, Susan Davison, director of corporate affairs with Kraft, said product safety was "not the only factor" the company considers.

"We must also carefully consider additional factors such as consumer benefits and acceptance ... and research in the U.S. indicates that consumers are currently not receptive to ingredients from cloned animals," she said.

"It is theoretically possible" offspring from clones are in the food supply, said Siobhan DeLancey, an FDA spokeswoman.

"Theoretically possible" is spokesperson speak for , "oh yeah, it happened."

Making Science More Better For You on 08/20/08

2008-08-20T10:26:00.000-07:00

So, does this mean it’s ok to just use “more” or "mine" as a number?

Aboriginal Kids Can Count Without Numbers

ScienceDaily (Aug. 19, 2008) — Knowing the words for numbers is not necessary to be able to count, according to a new study of aboriginal children by UCL (University College London) and the University of Melbourne. The study of the aboriginal children – from two communities which do not have words or gestures for numbers – found that they were able to copy and perform number-related tasks.

The findings, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that we possess an innate mechanism for counting, which may develop differently in children with dyscalculia.

Professor Brian Butterworth, lead author from the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, says: “Recently, an extreme form of linguistic determinism has been revived which claims that counting words are needed for children to develop concepts of numbers above three. That is, to possess the concept of ‘five’ you need a word for five. Evidence from children in numerate societies, but also from Amazonian adults whose language does not contain counting words, has been used to support this claim.

“However, our study of aboriginal children suggests that we have an innate system for recognizing and representing numerosities – the number of objects in a set – and that the lack of a number vocabulary should not prevent us from doing numerical tasks that do not require number words.”

We shouldn’t be surprised. We know some entrepreneurs in Brooklyn who use a very similar approach—especially if you’re late with the payments.

This just in—good-looking people are pleasing to the eye. Also, guys like to look at women who don’t look like guys. Film at 11.

Why Symmetry Predicts Bodily Attractiveness

ScienceDaily (Aug. 19, 2008) — A study by Dr William Brown and colleagues in Brunel University’s School of Social Sciences and School of Engineering and Design, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), has revealed an explanation for the correlation between attractiveness and bodily characteristics like height, breast size, long legs, broad shoulders or a curvy figure.

The study also explored the degree of asymmetries between the left and right sides of the body, which is widely believed to be an indirect measure of developmental quality in many species including humans.

Through their research at Brunel’s Centre for Cognition and Neuroimaging, Dr Brown and a team of scientists identified a property dubbed ‘body masculinity’, a mathematical fusion of traits including greater height, wider shoulders, smaller breasts and shorter legs.

Key findings of the study included:

* When asked to assess the attractiveness of female 3D body images, men rated those with less body masculinity most attractive, and vice versa
* High masculinity correlated with fewer departures from perfect bodily symmetry in males but with more asymmetry in females, suggesting that those with good development and health may have bodies that exaggerate sex-typical bodily features.

Commenting on the research, Dr Brown explains: “It is widely believed that human beings are attracted to one another as a result of genotypic and phenotypic quality – in other words, their prospect as a mate who will yield higher quality offspring for the chooser.”

He concludes: “It seems that because bodily asymmetries are too subtle to be seen with the naked eye, evolution has instead engineered more conspicuous signals and displays, such as broad shoulders, curvy waist lines or smooth dance moves to indicate mate quality.”

Oh yeah, gettin' busy as an engineering problem. That’s a worthwhile endeavor.

Making Science More Better For You on 08/13/08

2008-08-13T12:24:00.000-07:00

A geopolitical interlude...

It's said there are only two stories:
"A stranger called the Russian army comes to town, a Georgian army leaves on a trip."

Given that Putin still calls the shots even though he now has the title of Prime Minister, maybe the Russians should take a tip from the movie "Casino." His next title could be Food and Beverage Chairman.

Making Science More Better For You on 08/12/08

2008-08-12T13:39:00.000-07:00

Headline of the day
Lab makes diesel fuel from E. coli poop (CNN)
Sounds bio-disgusting...

We warned 'em about the cigarettes and trans fats, but you can’t tell them giant critters anything when they're on a bender. Ever seen a giant kangaroo on a bender?

Prehistoric giant animals killed by man, not climate: study
(AFP)
The chance discovery of the remains of a prehistoric giant kangaroo has cast doubts on the long-held view that climate change drove it and other mega-fauna to extinction, a new study reveals.

The research, published this week in the US-based journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, argues that man likely hunted to death the giant kangaroo and other very large animals on the southern island of Tasmania.

The debate centers on the skull of a giant kangaroo found in a cave in the thick rainforest of the rugged northwest of Tasmania in 2000. Scientists dated the find at 41,000 years old, some 2,000 years after humans first began to live in the area.

"Up until now, people thought that the Tasmanian mega-fauna had actually gone extinct before people arrived on the island," a member of the British and Australian study, Professor Richard Roberts, told AFP Tuesday.

He said that it was likely that hunting killed off Tasmania's mega-fauna -- including the long-muzzled, 120 kilogram (264 pound) giant kangaroo, a rhinoceros-sized wombat and marsupial 'lions' which resembled leopards.

Roberts, from the University of Wollongong south of Sydney, said the idea that climate change could account for the death of the animals was disputed by the fact the area had a very stable climate in the critical time period.

"Things were very climatically stable in that part of Australia and yet the mega-fauna still managed to go extinct," he said. "So it's down to humans of one sort or another."

Roberts said because the large animals were slow breeders, it would not have required an aggressive campaign to see them quickly die out.

"It was basically just one joey (baby kangaroo) in the pot for Christmas. And that's all you've got to go to do to drive slow-breeding species to extinction."

Slow breeders, mouth breathers, what’s the difference?

Making Science More Better For You on 08/07/08

2008-08-07T11:04:00.000-07:00

Damn it Jim, I’m a huckster, not an intergalactic undertaker.

Scotty's ashes fail to reach final frontier
Star Trek star's ashes lost in failed space mission
( From Ian Sample’s Science Blog at the Guardian.co.uk)

The ashes of actor James Doohan, who played Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in Star Trek, were lost on the way to space on Sunday morning, when the rocket carrying them malfunctioned minutes after take-off.

The actor's ashes were among those of 208 people, including Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper, who had paid to have their remains fired into space. Engineers later said that the two stages of the rocket had failed to separate.

The accident is the third in a row for SpaceX, which was set up in 2002 by the internet entrepreneur Elon Musk.

Making Science More Better For You on 08/05/08

2008-08-06T12:36:00.000-07:00

Fat chance

All U.S. adults could be overweight in 40 years
By Amy Norton

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - If the trends of the past three decades continue, it's possible that every American adult could be overweight 40 years from now, a government-funded study projects.

The figure might sound alarming, or impossible, but researchers say that even if the actual rate never reaches the 100-percent mark, any upward movement is worrying; two-thirds of the population is already overweight.

"Genetically and physiologically, it should be impossible" for all U.S. adults to become overweight, said Dr. Lan Liang of the federal government's Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, one of the researchers on the study.

However, she told Reuters Health, the data suggest that if the trends of the past 30 years persist, "that is the direction we're going."

Yep, everyone last one of us—even the super models are going to look like the Michelin Man. Unless we don't.

Making Science More Better For You on 08/05/08

2008-08-05T10:21:00.000-07:00

Headlines of the day

Beheading victim 'saw good in everyone' (CNN)
It would appear this worldview is not always adaptive.

Cow falls on slaughterhouse butcher (Milwaukee Journal Sentinal)
They must have had a beef.

Brewers' Fielder attacks teammate (SI)
So much for vegans being pacifists. Although, the word fist is in there.

Knights Templar heirs in legal battle with the Pope. (TDG)
Guess there’s a lot a stake.

German policewomen get 'bullet-proof bras'...(Drudge)
Truth or dare, Jean-Paul Gaultier?

Making Science More Better For You on 07/31/08

2008-07-31T10:24:00.000-07:00

Headlines of the day

New Mexico first state to adopt Navajo textbook (MSNBC)
The first. As opposed New Jersey?

France launches inquiry into legality of 10-year-old bullfighter (AFP)
Too much time on their hands, government division

Diamonds May Have Been Life's Best Friend (Science Daily)
Marilyn Monroe’s only known journal article

Making Science More Better For You on 07/30/08

2008-07-30T12:52:00.000-07:00

Headlines of the day

Man charged in sex toy theft (Haywood County News)
There’s lonely and then there’s lonely.

Jerry Lewis cited for gun in luggage, police say (CNN)
La-la-la, nice weapon

Mystery woman found under van Gogh painting (MSNBC)
Alex, who is Courtney Love?

Making science more better for you on 07/14/08

2008-07-14T16:43:00.000-07:00

Headline of the day

Atheist soldier sues military (CNN)
For the abyss and country? No, that's not it...

A financial interlude...

Poker players and bundles of bad paper
A real poker player knows that if he's invited to a game and he doesn't see a sucker when he enters the room, well, he understands why he was called. The suckers in this case were the folks who signed up for the subprime loans that are being blamed for much of the current financial crisis.

We're not arguing that the borrowers, as a class , were victims. Maybe some were, clearly many weren't. More accurately, what they were was fuel for the machine. Keeping the focus of the story on the "kind of people" that got the loans—you know, risky types— is working the long con on the audience. The borrowers were the marks, not the banks.

Follow the money
Start with the basic question: "cui bono?"—who benefits? These mortgages were being offered by banks, not social workers trying to help the underclass. Would the banks have signed off on these mortgages if it wasn't in their financial interest? We think not. We think the banks got what they wanted, loans they could bundle together and sell off to investors as a financial product. That's where they were going to make the real money—not on the loan, but on what they could turn the loan into. Financial alchemy 101.

Assuming the banks would make most of their profit off of the interest paid on subprime loans is like believing that a newspaper makes it's profit off the money you drop in the coin box. In the case of the newspaper, the money is in the ads. In the case of the banks, the real money was in what the loans could be used for by the banks. The loan was the raw material.

They're called consumers, but actually they're what gets consumed
The borrower was the mark and the mortgage the key ingredient in an investment sausage that has started to spoil. Want a slice?

The Fed's hand wringing about the need for more controls and standards is fine as far as it goes. What about controls on the back end? It's seems like getting rid of the regulations that used to prevent this kind activity, such as the repeal of Glass-Stiegel in 1999 by the Clinton administration, has made for a real bad round of financial Jenga. And they're passing the savings on to the rest of us.

Oh yeah, can anyone say credit cards? Sure you can.

Making Science More Better For You on 07/08/08

2008-07-09T09:48:00.000-07:00

Headline of the day
Naked man arrested after hijacking Las Vegas bus...(Drudge)

Bet he lost his shirt.

Making Science More Better For You on 07/07/08

2008-07-07T10:47:00.000-07:00

Today's headlines
For Better or Worse, Sex in Space Is Inevitable
(Space.com)
We guess that whether it’s better or worse depends on how much space is available.

Funeral industry is dying to be reformed (Newsweek)
Is that because it's a dead end profession?

Russians suspect Welsh arsonist stripper could be British spy (Telegraph.co.uk)
Talk about multitasking...

Making Science More Better For You on 07/02/08

2008-07-02T10:39:00.000-07:00

Today's headlines

Man arrested after beaning mom with sausage
(news-journalonline.com)

Ok, so Freud and Jung walk into a bar...

Man struck by lightening says it hurt. (CNN)

Also reveals that water is wet.

It’s not used. We like to call it pre-owned.

Who knew? Solar system is 'dented,' not round

WASHINGTON (AP) -- When viewed from the rest of the galaxy, the edge of our solar system appears slightly dented as if a giant hand is pushing one edge of it inward, far-traveling NASA probes reveal.

New data suggests our solar system is not as symmetrical as astronomers have long assumed.

Information from Earth's first space probes to hit the thick edge of the solar system -- called the heliosheath where the solar wind slows abruptly -- paint a picture that is not the simple circle that astronomers long thought, according to several studies published Thursday in the journal Nature.

A little Bondo and this baby is as good as new.

Making Science More Better For You on 07/01/08

2008-07-01T09:45:00.000-07:00

Today's headlines

Giraffe gathers troops, escapes circus (CNN)
We hear the chase was neck and neck.

National outbreak of grave robbing; stems from lagging economy. (Drudge)
Make no bones about it, they just can’t bury this story.

How does Mars taste? Salty, reports lander (MSNBC)
Did they find any peanuts? How about caramel?

He’s either hiding in a junior high school or at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Toilet-trained chimp on the run in Calif. forest
Animal served as owner's best man at wedding; linked to horrific attack (MSNBC)

“LOS ANGELES - A 42-year-old chimpanzee who is toilet-trained and can eat with a knife and fork is believed to be at large in a Southern California forest after escaping his cage.

The chimp called Moe disappeared Friday from Jungle Exotics, which trains animals for the entertainment industry. The chimp wandered into a house next door, surprising construction workers who saw him head for a nearby mountain.

A weekend search in the San Bernardino National Forest 50 miles east of Los Angeles came up empty.
"I yelled his name out for hours, for hours, with no one else around. Nothing. Not even a hoot," said LaDonna Davis, who owns Moe with husband St. James Davis.” (MSNBC)

We’re not sure about the wisdom of walking around in a forest near L.A. yelling “Hey Moe.” You might get more than you bargained for. No word about Curly or Larry.

This just in: Some products don’t deliver on advertised benefits. Film at 11.

Study: Some sunscreens overpromise on protection (CNN)

“The Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based nonprofit, has released an investigation of nearly 1,000 brand-name sunscreens that says four out of five don't adequately protect consumers and may contain harmful chemicals.

The group says some of the products of the nation's leading brands -- including Coppertone, Neutrogena and Banana Boat -- are the poorest performers.

Coppertone was named by the Environmental Working Group as having 41 products that failed to meet the group's criteria for issues ranging from failing to protect adequately to containing potentially harmful ingredients to making unsubstantiated claims.

But in a statement to CNN, the company says it "rigorously tests all its products in the lab and in the real world," to ensure they're safe and effective.” (CNN)

Breaking news: People with enough to eat tend to be happier

The world is getting happier, study says

(Science Daily) The World Values Survey (WVS) is the work of a global network of social scientists who perform periodic surveys addressing a number of issues. The latest surveys, taken in the United States and in several developing countries, showed increased happiness from 1981 to 2007 in 45 of 52 countries for which substantial time series data was available.

Researchers responsible for the analysis, from the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research (ISR) in Ann Arbor, say the overall rise in reported happiness is due to greater economic growth, democratization and social tolerance.

Denmark tops the list of surveyed nations, along with Puerto Rico and Colombia. A dozen other countries, including Ireland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Canada and Sweden also rank above the United States, which maintains about the same relative position as it did in WVS's 2000 survey.

We hear they dropped Darfur’s questionnaires out of a plane.

Making Science More Better For You on 06/27/08

2008-06-27T11:24:00.000-07:00

From: (The DenverChannel.com)
FORT COLLINS, Colo. -- Colorado's new flag stamp that went on sale two weeks ago as part of a new national stamp series may have a major problem: the mountain is in Wyoming.

East is east, west is west, we use the pictures that we like the best.

Making Science More Better For You on 06/26/08

2008-06-26T10:44:00.000-07:00

Headline of the day

Harness volcano power, energy experts say
(Telegraph.co.uk)

Others say the idea is just a “krak”-atoa.

Making Science More Better For You on 06/24/08

2008-06-24T09:45:00.000-07:00

Looks like someone had some extra time on his hands.

For what it’s worth, we think this demonstrates that Neil Young was right—numbers really do add up to nothing.

Odysseus' return from Trojan War dated
Time pinpointed to the day based on references in epic poem

By Charles Q. Choi (MSNBC)

In the epic "Odyssey," one of the cornerstones of Western literature, the legendary Greek hero Odysseus returns to his queen Penelope after enduring 10 years of sailing the wine dark sea.

Now scientists have pinned down his return to April 16, 1178 B.C., close to noon local time, according to astronomical references in the epic poem that seem to pinpoint the total eclipse of the sun on the day that Odysseus supposedly returned on.

The "Odyssey" is a millennia-old epic said to be composed by the blind poet Homer. In modern times, the "Odyssey" is typically seen as fiction. Still, Homer's earlier epic, the "Iliad," was centered on the war against Troy, and scientists first uncovered physical evidence of Troy in the 19th century. This has long raised questions as to what other historical facts the epics might refer to.
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In the "Odyssey," after the decade-long Trojan War, King Odysseus of the island Ithaca contends with monsters and witches after he draws the wrath of the sea god Poseidon. After he finally returns home, Odysseus slays more than 100 unruly suitors all of whom wish to marry Penelope.

Blood red
The possible solar eclipse comes up in the 20th book of the "Odyssey," as the suitors begin their final lunch. At this point, the goddess of war Athena "confounds their minds," making the suitors laugh uncontrollably and see their food spattered with blood. The seer Theoclymenus then foresees the death of the suitors, ending by saying, "The sun has been obliterated from the sky, and an unlucky darkness invades the world."

The Greek historian Plutarch suggested the prophecy of Theoclymenus referred to a solar eclipse.

More recently, astronomers Carl Schoch and Paul Neugebauer computed in the 1920s that a total solar eclipse occurred over the Ionian islands — of which Ithaca is one — about noon on April 16, 1178 B.C., and would have coincided roughly a decade before the most often cited estimate for the sack of Troy — about 1190 B.C.

INTERACTIVE

Ancients liked to party
We may practice debauchery like we invented it, but we sure didn't. From the Egytian "festival of drunkenness" to the Roman hot-tub parties, ancient people knew how to party long before we were born.
Still, a great deal of skepticism remains over whether Theoclymenus refers to this or any eclipse. To shed light on the issue, researchers Marcelo Magnasco and Constantino Baikouzis at Rockefeller University in New York decided to analyze other passages in the "Odyssey" for astronomical references without assuming an eclipse.

The scientists first created a rough chronology of events depicted in the "Odyssey." First, 29 days before the supposed eclipse and the massacre of the suitors, three constellations are mentioned as Odysseus sets out from the island of Ogygia, where he has spent seven years as a captive of the beautiful nymph Calypso. Odysseus is told to watch the Pleiades and late-setting Boötes and keep the Great Bear to his left. Next, five days before the supposed eclipse, Odysseus arrives in Ithaca as the Star of Dawn — that is, Venus — rises ahead of the sun.

Finally, the night before the eclipse, there is a new moon.

Also, the messenger of the gods, Hermes, is sent west to Ogygia by the king of the gods Zeus to release Odysseus and then immediately returns back east roughly 34 days before the eclipse. The researchers conjecture this trip refers to an apparent turning point of the motion of the planet Mercury. (Mercury was the Roman name for Hermes.)

Backward planet
Mercury completes its orbit around the sun in just roughly 88 days, compared with the year it takes Earth to do so. This means that Mercury and Earth are somewhat like two cars moving along separate lanes of a racetrack at different speeds. The effect of these motions is that Mercury occasionally appears to go backward or retrograde in the sky from our point of view, Magnasco explained. This happens for roughly three weeks at a time, about three times a year.

The scientists then searched for potential dates that satisfied all these astronomical references close to the fall of Troy, which has over the centuries been estimated to have occurred between roughly 1250 to 1115 B.C. From these 135 years, they found just one date satisfied all the references — April 16, 1178 B.C., the same date as the proposed eclipse.

"That's just one day out of about 50,000 days," Magnasco told LiveScience. "If our findings are correct, it would be pretty spectacularly strange. How could Homer have known about this eclipse, about planetary positions that happened some 100 years before him? If this is all true, it would change the timetable of what we think they knew about astronomy then." Homer, if he really existed, is said to have composed the "Odyssey" sometime near the end of the ninth century B.C.

And so, the handkerchief, the weekly bath and the commodore 64 were born.

Britain's Last Neanderthals Were More Sophisticated Than We Thought

ScienceDaily (June 23, 2008) — An archaeological excavation at a site near Pulborough, West Sussex, has thrown remarkable new light on the life of northern Europe’s last Neanderthals. It provides a snapshot of a thriving, developing population – rather than communities on the verge of extinction.

“The tools we’ve found at the site are technologically advanced and potentially older than tools in Britain belonging to our own species, Homo sapiens,” says Dr Matthew Pope of Archaeology South East based at the UCL Institute of Archaeology. “It’s exciting to think that there’s a real possibility these were left by some of the last Neanderthal hunting groups to occupy northern Europe. The impression they give is of a population in complete command of both landscape and natural raw materials with a flourishing technology - not a people on the edge of extinction.”

The team, led by Dr Pope and funded by English Heritage, is undertaking the first modern, scientific investigation of the site since its original discovery in 1900. During the construction of a monumental house known as ‘Beedings’ some 2,300 perfectly preserved stone tools were removed from fissures encountered in the foundation trenches.

Only recently were the tools recognised for their importance. Research by Roger Jacobi of the Leverhulme-funded Ancient Human Occupation of Britain (AHOB) Project showed conclusively that the Beedings material has strong affinities with other tools from northern Europe dating back to between 35,000 and 42,000 years ago. The collection of tools from Beedings is more diverse and extensive than any other found in the region and therefore offers the best insight into the technologically advanced cultures which occupied Northern Europe before the accepted appearance of our own species.

“Dr Jacobi’s work showed the clear importance of the site,” says Dr Pope. “The exceptional collection of tools appears to represent the sophisticated hunting kit of Neanderthal populations which were only a few millennia from complete disappearance in the region. Unlike earlier, more typical Neanderthal tools these were made with long, straight blades - blades which were then turned into a variety of bone and hide processing implements, as well as lethal spear points.

“There were some questions about the validity of the earlier find, but our excavations have proved beyond doubt that the material discovered here was genuine and originated from fissures within the local sandstone. We also discovered older, more typical Neanderthal tools, deeper in the fissure. Clearly, Neanderthal hunters were drawn to the hill over a long period time, presumably for excellent views of the game-herds grazing on the plains below the ridge.”

The excavations suggest the site may not be unique. Similar sites with comparable fissure systems are thought to exist across south east England. The project now aims to prospect more widely across the region for similar sites.

Barney Sloane, Head of Historic Environment Commissions at English Heritage, said: “Sites such as this are extremely rare and a relatively little considered archaeological resource. Their remains sit at a key watershed in the evolutionary history of northern Europe. The tools at Beedings could equally be the signature of pioneer populations of modern humans, or traces of the last Neanderthal hunting groups to occupy the region. This study offers a rare chance to answer some crucial questions about just how technologically advanced Neanderthals were, and how they compare with our own species.”

The project, which has been running with the assistance of the landowners since February 2008, has been directed by Dr Matthew Pope of UCL and Caroline Wells of Sussex Archaeological Society, working closely with specialists from the Boxgrove Project and the Worthing Archaeological Society.

Making Science More Better For You on 06/23/08

2008-06-23T10:36:00.000-07:00

Headline of the day
Heart Failure Kills George Carlin (CNN)

A character in a Ross Thomas novel once observed that the phrase is just about meaningless. That's because in the end, everyone dies of heart failure.

We already have a drug that's used to cure shyness. It’s called alcohol.

According to ThisIsLondon.UK, scientists find childbirth wonder drug that can 'cure' shyness

It can turn anything from job interviews to the most routine of family gatherings into a sweat-inducing ordeal.

But a 'love drug' produced naturally by the body during sex and childbirth could offer hope to the millions of people blighted by shyness, scientists have said.

Investigators believe oxytocin - a natural hormone that assists childbirth and helps mothers bond with newborn babies - could become a wonder drug for overcoming shyness.

Scientists found the drug could help shyness

Trials have found that oxytocin can reduce anxiety and ease phobias. Researchers say the hormone offers a possible, safe, alternative to alcohol as a means of overcoming the problem.

Sixty per cent of Britons say they have suffered from shyness and one in 10 say it impedes their daily life.

Researchers in the US, Europe and Australia are now racing to develop commercial forms of the hormone, including a nasal spray.

They believe it could also be turned into a 'wonder drug' to treat a range of personality disorders such as autism, depression and anxiety.

Paul Zak, a professor of neuroscience at California’s Claremont Graduate University said: 'Tests have shown that oxytocin reduces anxiety levels in users. It is a hormone that facilitates social contact between people.

What’s more, it is a very safe product that does not have any side effects and is not addictive.'

Professor Zak has tested the hormone on hundreds of patients. Its main effect is to curb the instincts of wariness and suspicion that cause anxiety.

The hormone is said to help mothers bond with their babies

Produced naturally in the brain during social interactions, it promotes romantic feelings, helps mothers bond with babies and makes people more sociable.

Oxytocin is released during orgasm and is also the key birthing hormone that enables the cervix to open and the contractions to work. Where labour has to be induced, it is often given to the mother intravenously to kick-start contractions.

Professor Zak said: 'We've seen that it makes you care about the other person. It also increases your generosity towards that person. That's why (the hormone) facilitates social interaction.'

In other recent trials, researchers at Zurich University in Switzerland have managed to ease symptoms of extreme shyness in 120 patients by giving them the hormone treatment half an hour before they encountered an awkward situation.

Oxytocin spray has also been successfully trialled at the University of New South Wales.

Autistic patients given oxytocin as part of a study in New York found their ability to recognise emotions such as happiness or anger in a person's tone of voice - something which usually proved difficult - also improved.

Experiments by Dr Eric Hollander at the city's Mount Sinai School of Medicine found a single intravenous infusion of the chemical triggered improvements that lasted for two weeks.

Previous research has revealed autistic children have lower than usual levels of oxytocin in their blood.

Professor Zak said: 'Oxytocin does not cure autism, but it does reduce the symptoms.'
Studies on rats at Emory University in Atlanta also suggested the hormone made the rodents more faithful to their partners.

The potential uses of oxytocin offer commercial possibilities well beyond individual patients too. Restaurants, for instance, could spray a thin mist over customers to put them at ease.

It could be used as a benign form of tear gas, quelling any violent feelings among groups of demonstrators, or, building on the Atlanta research, even to prevent extramarital affairs.

Previous research into the hormone by Professor Zak suggested that generous people had higher than average levels of oxytocin in the brain, while mean-spirited people have lower than normal levels.

Researchers gave doses of oxytocin and a placebo to participants, who were then asked to decide how to split a sum of cash with a stranger. Those given oxytocin offered 80 per cent more money than those given a placebo.

However, despite the many potential benefits of the research projects, some scientists have sounded warnings over the negative potential uses the hormone offers.

They say oxytocin could have potential as a date-rape drug as it is involved in both trust and sexual arousal.

And if oxyctin really is a childbirth wonder drug, the subjects in the study probably weren't that shy to begin with.

Making Science More Better For You on 06/19/08

2008-06-19T12:31:00.000-07:00

Live fast, drive young

Eight-year-old in Serbia steals car, goes on rampage
Jun 19 (Breitbart)

An eight-year-old boy stole a car before going on a rampage through the streets of a southern Serbian town, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake, Beta news agency reported Thursday.

After jumping into the car -- a Zastava 101 -- the boy only identified by the initials V.P. promptly steered it onto a pavement and struck a passer-by pushing a pram in front of the town hall in Leskovac.

His apparent test of his driving skills soon came to an abrupt end when the boy crashed the car into a nearby tree, damaging the vehicle.

The pavement victim was in shock, but not injured, said Beta, which added that police had detained the boy before placing him under the watch of childcare authorities.

A rampage in Siberia? He must have run around melting things.

Making Science More Better For You on 06/18/08

2008-06-18T09:53:00.000-07:00

Headlines of the day
5th human foot mysteriously washes up (CNN)
Why can’t this moron go to Payless like everyone else?

Police Find Lobster Tails Down Cooks Pants (WCBS)
Boil'em. Dano.

If they want to monkey around they should just do what humans do and turn up the stereo.

Shhhh! Quiet copulation key for female chimps

By Michael KahnPosted 2008/06/17 at 9:42 pm EDT

LONDON, June 17, 2008 (Reuters) — Female chimps keep quiet during sex to keep other females from finding out and punishing them for mating with the best males, British researchers said on Wednesday.

The study of chimp copulation calls also found that females seem more concerned with having sex with as many mates as possible rather than just finding the strongest male as a way to confuse paternity and secure future protection for offspring.

"They are trying to make the high-ranking males think they are the father," said Simon Townsend, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of St. Andrews in Britain, who led the study. "If you confuse paternity, they are more likely to provide that female with future support."

The findings show that chimps -- our closest living relatives -- can use their calls flexibly in response to social factors while knowing more about the apes could help in conservation efforts, he added.

Researchers have long been interested in mating calls of different animals, especially primates. A common hypothesis is that females use such calls to advertise to prospective males they are ready to mate, which in turn incites competition that leads to the strongest partner and highest quality offspring.

But it appears the female chimps are also a touch more savvy about the opposite sex, according to the findings published in the journal PLoS One.

"The female chimps we observed in the wild seemed to be much more concerned with having sex with many different males, without other females finding out about it, than causing males to fight over them," Townsend said.

Ah yes, another research question based on someone’s fantasy life.

We've always thought of donuts as a form of self-medication.

Study: Depression and Diabetes May Trigger Each Other

Not only are people with type 2 diabetes more prone to depression, but people with depression are more prone to getting diabetes, a new study, published in the June 18 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, found.

Researchers have long known that type 2 diabetes and depression often go hand-in-hand, according to the study, so researchers with Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore set out to determine which comes first.

Dr. Sherita Hill Golden and her colleagues looked at data from an ethnically diverse group of 6,814 men and women between ages 45 to 84. Study participants identified themselves as white, black, Hispanic or Chinese.

Participants made three visits to clinics over the course of three years.

How about an éclair stuffed with Prozac?

Making Science More Better For You on 06/17/08

2008-06-17T08:54:00.000-07:00

Headlines of the day

Man accused of ordering python to attack girlfriend, cops
(The Obscure Store)
Ok, we’ll ask. How many eyes did the snake have? Because that could change the whole thing.

Woman, 52, sues Victoria's Secret, claims injury from defective thong (The Smoking Gun)
Too many parts?

Monkeys swim to freedom (CNN)
They say one changed his name to Spaulding Gray

Coffee Drinkers Have Slightly Lower Death Rates (Science Daily)
So, that means fewer of them die, ever. Right? Starbucks must be over the moon on this one.

Mr. Sporty sez, “That’s right, cause it’s all about the honey, sonny”

Decision-Making, Risk-Taking Similar In Bees And Humans

ScienceDaily (Jun. 17, 2008) — Most people think before making decisions. As it turns out, so do bees. In the journal Nature, Israeli researchers show that when making decisions, people and bees alike are more likely to gamble on risky courses of action - rather than taking a safer option - when the differences between the various possible outcomes are easily distinguishable. When the outcomes are difficult to discern, however, both groups are far more likely to select the safer option - even if the actual probabilities of success have not changed.

The findings by researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University help shed light on why people are inclined to choose certainty when differences between potential outcomes - such as paybacks when gambling or returns on financial investments - are difficult to discern.

In tests with 50 college students, subjects chose between two unmarked computer buttons. Pushing one of the buttons resulted in a payoff of 3 credits with 100% certainty, while pushing the other led to a payoff of 4 credits with an 80% certainty - though participants only learned these payoffs through trial and error as they flashed on screen. Test subjects were required to make 400 such decisions each, and tended to choose the risky strategy when payoffs were represented as simple numbers (i.e. "3 credits" and "4 credits"). The results were similar when the numerals 3 and 4 were replaced with easily distinguishable clouds of 30 and 60 dots. But when the numerals were replaced with clouds of 30 or 40 dots - making it much more difficult to distinguish between the two - subjects veered towards the more certain outcome.

The researchers subjected honeybees to similar trials, using the bees' sense of smell and 2 µl drops of sugar solution payoffs of varying concentrations. The researchers first tested the bees with payoffs for risky and safe alternatives at 10% and 5% sugar concentrations, respectively. In a second experiment, the payoffs were a less-easy-to-discriminate-between 6.7% and 5%, and in a third experiment, the payoff in both alternatives was 6.7%. Bees were required to make 32 such decisions, and were given a choice between two smells, each presented twice for one-second each, in an alternating sequence. The bees tended towards the risky strategy only when their choice was easily discernable, paralleling their human counterparts.

According to Professor Ido Erev of the Technion Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management, some practical implications of this research can be seen in an analysis of the values placed on rule enforcement in the workplace. The results, he said, suggest that:

* consistent and constant rule enforcement is necessary, since workers are more likely to ignore risks - if they have done so before without punishment;
* workers are likely to be supportive of enforcement, since they initially plan to obey many of the rules (wearing safety goggles, for instance) they end up violating; and
* severe penalties that are not always enforced are not likely to be effective, but gentle, consistently enforced rewards and punishments can be.

"The similar responses by humans and bees demonstrates that this decision-making process happens very early in evolution," said Erev. "The results suggest that this is a very basic phenomenon shared by many different animals."

Forget about those pesky word thingies. They get in the way of the pretty picture

The meaning of the butterfly
Why pop culture loves the 'butterfly effect,' and gets it totally wrong (Boston.com)
by Peter Dizikes

SOME SCIENTISTS SEE their work make headlines. But MIT meteorologist Edward Lorenz watched his work become a catch phrase. Lorenz, who died in April, created one of the most beguiling and evocative notions ever to leap from the lab into popular culture: the "butterfly effect," the concept that small events can have large, widespread consequences. The name stems from Lorenz's suggestion that a massive storm might have its roots in the faraway flapping of a tiny butterfly's wings.
more stories like this

Translated into mass culture, the butterfly effect has become a metaphor for the existence of seemingly insignificant moments that alter history and shape destinies. Typically unrecognized at first, they create threads of cause and effect that appear obvious in retrospect, changing the course of a human life or rippling through the global economy.

In the 2004 movie "The Butterfly Effect" - we watched it so you don't have to - Ashton Kutcher travels back in time, altering his troubled childhood in order to influence the present, though with dismal results. In 1990's "Havana," Robert Redford, a math-wise gambler, tells Lena Olin, "A butterfly can flutter its wings over a flower in China and cause a hurricane in the Caribbean. They can even calculate the odds."

Such borrowings of Lorenz's idea might seem authoritative to unsuspecting viewers, but they share one major problem: They get his insight precisely backwards. The larger meaning of the butterfly effect is not that we can readily track such connections, but that we can't. To claim a butterfly's wings can cause a storm, after all, is to raise the question: How can we definitively say what caused any storm, if it could be something as slight as a butterfly? Lorenz's work gives us a fresh way to think about cause and effect, but does not offer easy answers.

Pop culture references to the butterfly effect may be bad physics, but they're a good barometer of how the public thinks about science. They expose the growing chasm between what the public expects from scientific research - that is, a series of ever more precise answers about the world we live in - and the realms of uncertainty into which modern science is taking us.

. . .

The butterfly effect is a deceptively simple insight extracted from a complex modern field. As a low-profile assistant professor in MIT's department of meteorology in 1961, Lorenz created an early computer program to simulate weather. One day he changed one of a dozen numbers representing atmospheric conditions, from .506127 to .506. That tiny alteration utterly transformed his long-term forecast, a point Lorenz amplified in his 1972 paper, "Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?"

In the paper, Lorenz claimed the large effects of tiny atmospheric events pose both a practical problem, by limiting long-term weather forecasts, and a philosophical one, by preventing us from isolating specific causes of later conditions. The "innumerable" interconnections of nature, Lorenz noted, mean a butterfly's flap could cause a tornado - or, for all we know, could prevent one. Similarly, should we make even a tiny alteration to nature, "we shall never know what would have happened if we had not disturbed it," since subsequent changes are too complex and entangled to restore a previous state.

So a principal lesson of the butterfly effect is the opposite of Redford's line: It is extremely hard to calculate such things with certainty. There are many butterflies out there. A tornado in Texas could be caused by a butterfly in Brazil, Bali, or Budapest. Realistically, we can't know. "It's impossible for humans to measure everything infinitely accurately," says Robert Devaney, a mathematics professor at Boston University. "And if you're off at all, the behavior of the solution could be completely off." When small imprecisions matter greatly, the world is radically unpredictable.

Moreover, Lorenz also discovered stricter limits on our knowledge, proving that even models of physical systems with a few precisely known variables, like a heated gas swirling in a box, can produce endlessly unpredictable and nonrepeating effects. This is a founding idea of chaos theory, whose advocates sometimes say Lorenz helped dispel the Newtonian idea of a wholly predictable universe.

"Lorenz went beyond the butterfly," says Kerry Emanuel, a professor in the department of earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences at MIT. "To say that certain systems are not predictable, no matter how precise you make the initial conditions, is a profound statement." Instead of a vision of science in which any prediction is possible, as long as we have enough information, Lorenz's work suggested that our ability to analyze and predict the workings of the world is inherently limited.

But in the popular imagination, that one picturesque little butterfly became a metaphor for the surprising way that long chains of events unfold. A SmartMoney.com market analysis from 2007 cites Lorenz, then suggests that hypothetical problems at Sony could affect a string of shippers, retailers, and investors: "One butterfly, in this case a Japanese butterfly, sets off the entire chain." Even applied to society, rather than nature, such claims merit skepticism.

That we imagine the butterfly effect would explain things in everyday life, however, reveals more than an overeager impulse to validate ideas through science. It speaks to our larger expectation that the world should be comprehensible - that everything happens for a reason, and that we can pinpoint all those reasons, however small they may be. But nature itself defies this expectation. It is probability, not certain cause and effect, that now dictates how scientists understand many systems, from subatomic particles to storms. "People grasp that small things can make a big difference," Emanuel says. "But they make errors about the physical world. People want to attach a specific cause to events, and can't accept the randomness of the world."

Thus global warming may make big storms more likely - "loading the die," Emanuel says - but we cannot say it definitively caused Hurricane Katrina. Science helps us understand the universe, but as Lorenz showed, it sometimes does so by revealing the limits of our understanding.

Peter Dizikes is a science journalist living in Arlington.

So, picture Earth in a fat suit. You know, like Monica in that episode of “Friends,” only they’re planets.

Newly found planets make case for 'crowded universe'

WASHINGTON (AP) -- European astronomers have found a trio of "super-Earths" closely circling a star that astronomers once figured had nothing orbiting it.

The discovery may mean the universe is teeming with far more planets than previously thought.

The discovery demonstrates that planets keep popping up in unexpected places around the universe.

The announcement is the first time three planets close to Earth's size were found orbiting a single star, said Swiss astronomer Didier Queloz.

He was part of the Swiss-French team using the European Southern Observatory's La Silla Observatory in the desert in Chile.

The mass of the smallest of the super-Earths is about four times the size of Earth.

That may seem like a lot, but they are quite a bit closer in size and likely composition to Earth than the giants in Earth's solar system -- Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

They are much too hot to support life, Queloz said.

Scientists are more interested in the broader implications of the finding: The universe is teeming with far more planets than thought.

Using a new tool to study more than 100 stars once thought to be devoid of planets, the Swiss-French team found that about one-third had planets that are only slightly bigger than Earth.

That's how the star with three super-Earths, 42 light-years away, was spotted.

The European team took a second look with a relatively new instrument that measures tiny changes in light wave lengths and is so sensitive that it is precisely positioned and locked in a special room below the observatory in Chile. The key is kept in Switzerland, scientists say.

The discovery is "really making the case that we live in a crowded universe," said Carnegie Institution of Washington astronomer Alan Boss, who was not part of the discovery team. "Planets are out there. They're all over the place."

That means it is easier to make the case for life elsewhere in the universe, both Boss and Queloz said.

European astronomers have found a trio of "super-Earths" closely circling a star that astronomers once figured had nothing orbiting it.
No way around it, those Europeans just love Liza Minelli

Making Science More Better For You on 06/16/08

2008-06-16T08:29:00.000-07:00

Headlines of the day
Police investigate wife for five dead husbands (CNN)

Nobody likes a showoff.

Dinosaur mummy holds many secrets (CNN)
Oh yeah? Who shot JFK, mr. know-it-all dinosaur?

International relations
Yesterday's football dust up between the Czechs and the Turks reminded us once again why soccer is more like adult dating and american football is more like teen dating. When it comes to adult dating, people don't score as often, but when they do they tend to get really excited. They might even burn down an embassy or two.

A political interlude: "Great job Brownie"
Are we the only ones who find it a bit odd that several cities in the heartland are under water and no one is asking why the President hasn't cut his farewell tour of the continent short?

Making Science More Better For You on 06/13/08

2008-06-13T07:51:00.000-07:00

Headlines of the day
Salmonella fear traps tomatoes in Mexico (AP)

Is Tomatoes Salmonella the mob name of the week, or what?

Rare male sea dragon pregnant (CNN)
Puff?

A Friday the 13th thought.
That's life
That's what all the people say.
First you're ridin' high in April
Then you're Jacques de Molay.

Making Science More Better For You on 06/11/08

2008-06-11T13:11:00.000-07:00

Headline of the day
Cat eating students shooed off from Facebook (Copenhagen Post)

Cheesy Danes feel blue. Film at 11.

Making Science More Better For You on 06/10/08

2008-06-10T12:28:00.000-07:00

Headline of the day
Groom arrested at own wedding reception (LaCrosse Tribune)

Well, that bodes well.

Feed a monkey a fish and you have fed him for a day. Teach a monkey how to fish ...and you have a fishing monkey.

Scientists find monkeys who know how to fish
By MICHAEL CASEY
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - Long-tailed macaque monkeys have a reputation for knowing how to find food - whether it be grabbing fruit from jungle trees or snatching a banana from a startled tourist.

Now, researchers say they have discovered groups of the silver-haired monkeys in Indonesia that fish.

Groups of long-tailed macaques were observed four times over the past eight years scooping up small fish with their hands and eating them along rivers in East Kalimantan and North Sumatra provinces, according to researchers from The Nature Conservancy and the Great Ape Trust.

The species had been known to eat fruit and forage for crabs and insects, but never before fish from rivers.

"It's exciting that after such a long time you see new behavior," said Erik Meijaard, one of the authors of a study on fishing macaques that appeared in last month's International Journal of Primatology. "It's an indication of how little we know about the species."

Meijaard, a senior science adviser at The Nature Conservancy, said it was unclear what prompted the long-tailed macaques to go fishing. But he said it showed a side of the monkeys that is well-known to researchers - an ability to adapt to the changing environment and shifting food sources.

"They are a survivor species, which has the knowledge to cope with difficult conditions," Meijaard said Tuesday. "This behavior potentially symbolizes that ecological flexibility."

The other authors of the paper, which describes the fishing as "rare and isolated" behavior, are The Nature Conservancy volunteers Anne-Marie E. Stewart, Chris H. Gordon and Philippa Schroor, and Serge Wich of the Great Ape Trust.

Some other primates have exhibited fishing behavior, Meijaard wrote, including Japanese macaques, chacma baboons, olive baboons, chimpanzees and orangutans.

Agustin Fuentes, a University of Notre Dame anthropology professor who studies long-tailed macaques, or macaca fascicularis, on the Indonesian island of Bali and in Singapore, said he was "heartened" to see the finding published because such details can offer insight into the "complexity of these animals."

"It was not surprising to me because they are very adaptive," he said. "If you provide them with an opportunity to get something tasty, they will do their best to get it."

Fuentes, who is not connected with the published study, said he has seen similar behavior in Bali, where he has observed long-tailed macaques in flooded paddy fields foraging for frogs and crabs. He said it affirms his belief that their ability to thrive in urban and rural environments from Indonesia to northern Thailand could offer lessons for endangered species.

"We look at so many primate species not doing well. But at the same time, these macaques are doing very well," he said. "We should learn what they do successfully in relation to other species."

Still, Fuentes and Meijaard said further research was needed to understand the full significance of the behavior. Among the lingering questions are what prompted the monkeys to go fishing and how common it is among the species.
Long-tailed macaques were twice observed catching fish by The Nature Conservancy researchers in 2007.

Another little known fact is that the Royal Coachman fly was created by a macaque that lived a quiet life as a fishing guide in a village near Saskatchewan. It’s said the bears swore by him.

Earth must seem like the Jersey Shore when those guys from Nebula 16 come here.
You've got to wonder how they both those heads into the T-shirt that says "The "rents" went to Earth and all I got was this lousy T-shirt."

Star wars: who are we inviting in from the cold?

* Graham Phillips/The Age.com.au
IT SOUNDS wacky, but a fight has broken out among scientists over whether we should be sending messages to aliens. Sure, it's a boffin fight: no vigorous punching, just vigorous publishing, spirited debate, and shock resignations from erudite organisations.

The latest instalment in the scientific scrap is a paper by Russian physicist Alexander Zaitsev. In it he shows why his alien messages can't be held responsible if extraterrestrials do one day invade the Earth. In fact if that happens, he says, blame astronomers.

At the core of the debate is a process called Active SETI. Ordinary SETI - the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence - is a worldwide effort by astronomers using radio telescopes to listen for alien signals. Active SETI, which some researchers are now pushing, involves actually sending messages into space.

Zaitsev has been pursuing Active SETI for a decade using a radar facility in the Ukraine. He has sent messages in the direction of various sun-like stars in the Milky Way, hoping to attract alien attention.

But some astronomers believe this puts the Earth at risk. They argue that if we don't send messages, any hostile galactic super-civilisations out there won't know we're here, and we'll remain hidden among the billions of stars. If we do send messages, ET might read our greetings as a dinner invitation.

University of California biologist Jared Diamond has pointed out that there is no guarantee extraterrestrials will be interested in chatting with an inferior species like ours. After all, he says, look what we do to the inferior species on Earth. We shoot them, dissect them, cut off their hands for trophies, exhibit them in cages, inject them with AIDS as a medical experiment, and destroy or take over their habitats.

Now the probability of inducing alien invasion is very low. But because we don't know what is out there, the risk is not zero. New research continually indicates there is reason to expect that alien life in some form is relatively common throughout the universe. Just last month Australian National University researcher Charles Lineweaver added to that research by showing that stars like our sun are very common in the Milky Way. If life got going here, why not around some of those other suns too?

A group of people within the International Academy of Astronautics determines policy decisions on SETI matters, and last year two of its prominent members resigned. They were concerned too many people in the group were professionally interested in sending messages to ET. The two didn't think SETI scientists should be making decisions on behalf of the whole of humanity.

But Zaitsev has hit back at critics. He has calculated that his - and everyone else's - messages to other star systems are small fry compared with the standard exploratory signals astronomers have been sending out for decades. In an attempt to work out the properties of the other planets and orbiting asteroids, astronomers beam microwaves into the solar system. This radiation doesn't stop in our planetary system, however, it keeps going. Aliens could detect it and calculate our location from the signals.

The area of space that has received this radiation is 2000 times bigger than the area targeted with messages, calculates Zaitsev, so the radiation is far more likely to attract attention. Our secret is already out.

Really the only question now is, how much information about ourselves should we beam into the cosmos? So far, those in Active SETI have sent out only simple messages, often just patterns of numbers. The idea is, ET should be able to distinguish the patterns from the general radio noise that clutters the skies and recognise our signals as messages. Also, as the rules of mathematics are universal, aliens should speak the language of maths.

But why not go much further? Seth Shostak, an astronomer at the SETI Institute in California, has suggested we transmit the entire contents of the internet to select stars in the Milky Way. By browsing those billions of websites, ET would not only know there are other intelligences out there, but would be able to learn all about us.

Actually, all that mindless internet detail might just put off the alien hoards from descending on Earth.

Making Science More Better For You on 06/09/08

2008-06-09T12:25:00.000-07:00

Sure we'll say it..'It's the gift that keeps on giving."

Ah, don't be sore......

Study: 1 in 4 adults in NYC have herpes virus
NEW YORK (AP) - A city Health Department study finds that more than a fourth of adult New Yorkers are infected with the virus that causes genital herpes.

The study, released Monday, says about 26 percent of New York City adults have genital herpes, compared to about 19 percent nationwide.

The department says genital herpes can double a person's risk for contracting HIV.

Herpes can cause painful sores, but most people have no recognizable symptoms.

Among New Yorkers, the herpes rate is higher among women, black people and gay men.

The health department urges consistent use of condoms, and says its STD clinics offer free, confidential herpes testing.

We just called to say that you're late with the payments.

Saudi calls for talks with oil consumers
Jun 9 01:12 PM US/Eastern

Oil kingpin Saudi Arabia called on Monday for talks with consumer nations on soaring world prices and reiterated its readiness to meet any increase in demand.

At a meeting chaired by King Abdullah, the Saudi cabinet restated its view that the leap in prices that saw New York's benchmark contract hit a record 138.54 dollars on Friday was unjustified by fundamentals.

But it added that it had asked Oil Minister Ali al-Nuaimi to "convene a meeting soon of representatives of producer and consumer nations and firms operating in the production, export and trading of oil to discuss the jump in prices, its causes and how to deal with it objectively".

"Saudi Arabia ... has notified all oil companies with which it does business, as well as consumer nations, of its readiness to provide them with any additional quantities of oil they need," added the cabinet statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

It's like having the five families run a clinic for problem gamblers.

Making Science More Better For You on 06/06/08

2008-06-03T10:43:00.000-07:00

Headlines of the day
Kennedy’s Brain Surgeon On Cutting Edge (New York Post)

Does Kobe have Beef with Allen? (SI.com/CNN)

Try saying it out loud.

This just in—Kids do what they want until someone says no. Film at 11.

Kids drinking more sugary drinks and juice
By Anne Harding
Posted 5:06 pm EDT

NEW YORK, Jun. 2, 2008 (Reuters Health) — Children in the U.S. are now getting more of their calories from fruit juice and sugar-sweetened beverages than they were 20 years ago, according to a new analysis of national data published in Pediatrics.

Limiting the consumption of "empty calories" by reducing intake of sugar-sweetened beverages could help kids eat healthier and stay slim, the study's authors, Dr. Y. Claire Wang of the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health in New York City and colleagues, conclude.

However, the authors of another study out today report that children who drink 100 percent fruit juice are no more likely to be overweight than kids who don't. What's more, say Dr. Theresa A. Nicklas of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and her team, juice drinkers ate more fruit and had a higher intake of several nutrients including vitamin C, folate and potassium.

"The science clearly shows that 100 percent juice is a valuable contributor of nutrients to children's diets and it's not associated with weight," Nicklas told Reuters Health in an interview.

Both sets of researchers looked at the same data: the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), in which people report what they ate in the previous 24 hours. Wang and her team compared NHANES 1988-1994 and NHANES 1999-2004, while Nicklas and colleagues looked at 1999-2002 NHANES data.

"I don't think we are really saying opposite things," Wang commented. "The focus of our study is to look at the trends."

Wang and her colleagues looked at the percentage of calories consumed as sugar-sweetened beverages and fruit juice from 1988 to 2004. On average, they found, kids 2 to 19 years old got 242 calories a day from these beverages in 1988-1994, and 270 calories daily in 1999-2004; intake of sugar sweetened beverages increased from 204 to 224 calories daily while fruit juice intake rose from 38 to 48 calories per day.

Preschoolers who drank fruit juice consumed an average of 10 ounces a day. However, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends no more than six ounces daily for children one to six years old. Children 7 to 18 years old should drink no more than 12 ounces, or two servings, of fruit juice daily, according to the AAP. Across children of all ages, average fruit juice consumption was 12.4 ounces daily in 1999-2004, up from 11.2 ounces in 1988-1994.

Two- to five-year-olds were consuming 176 calories a day worth of sugar sweetened beverages, equivalent to more than a can of soda, while 6- to 11-year-olds took in 229 calories in sugar-sweetened beverages daily and 12 to 19 year olds consumed 356 calories, about the same as a 20-ounce bottle.

The sharpest increases in sugar-sweetened beverage consumption, of 20 percent, were seen among 6- to 11-year-olds. Consumption also rose more among Latino and African-American children than whites.

Among teens, Wang and her team found, the 84 percent who drank sugar sweetened beverages consumed 30 ounces daily or 360 calories, representing 16 percent of their calorie intake. A 15-year-old boy would have to spend an hour jogging or more than three hours walking in order to burn off this amount of extra calories, the researchers say.

Fruit juice isn't the problem, argues Nicklas, who points out that the daily calorie increase represented by fruit juice is quite small-just 10 calories between the two time periods. "It explains such a small percentage of the calories in the diet. We need to look at where are all the other calories coming from."

Also, Nicklas notes, most Americans aren't meeting fruit consumption requirements, and drinking 100 percent juice may be one way to up fruit intake.

Fruit juices "can never replace the benefits of whole fruit," said Wang. "However I do think that juices do contain some essential nutrients and you cannot say the same thing about sugar sweetened beverages."

Nicklas' study was funded by the US Department of Agriculture and the Juice Products Association. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided support for Wang's research.

“Limiting the consumption of "empty calories" by reducing intake of sugar-sweetened beverages could help kids eat healthier and stay slim, the study's authors, Dr. Y. Claire Wang of the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health in New York City and colleagues, conclude.” Yeah, sure. Hey look, there’s a flying pig.

Making Science More Better For You on 05/29/08

2008-05-29T11:29:00.000-07:00

Headline of the day
Irked neighbor saws off left half of tree (CNN)
It's nice to know someone still gets "irked."

Must press button. Must get food. Must crap in hand and throw it at strangers.

Monkeys control a robot arm with their thoughts
By Benedict Carey (International Herald Tribune)

Two monkeys with tiny sensors in their brains have learned to control a mechanical arm with just their thoughts, using it to reach for and grab food and even to adjust for the size and stickiness of morsels when necessary, scientists reported on Wednesday.

The report, released online by the journal Nature, is the most striking demonstration to date of brain-machine interface technology. Scientists expect that technology will eventually allow people with spinal cord injuries and other paralyzing conditions to gain more control over their lives.

The findings suggest that brain-controlled prosthetics, while not practical, are at least technically within reach.

In previous studies, researchers showed that humans who had been paralyzed for years could learn to control a cursor on a computer screen with their brain waves and that nonhuman primates could use their thoughts to move a mechanical arm, a robotic hand, a robot on a treadmill or a small vehicle.

The new experiment goes a step further. In it, the monkeys' brains seem to have adopted the mechanical appendage as their own, refining its movement as it interacted with real objects in real time. The monkeys had their own arms gently restrained while they learned to use the added one.
Multimedia

Experts not involved with the study said the findings were likely to accelerate interest in human testing, especially given the need to treat head and spinal injuries in veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

"This study really pulls together all the pieces from earlier work and provides a clear demonstration of what's possible," said Dr. William Heetderks , director of the extramural science program at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering.

Dr. John Donoghue, director of the Institute of Brain Science at Brown University, said the new report was "important because it's the most comprehensive study showing how an animal interacts with complex objects, using only brain activity."

The researchers, from the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, used monkeys partly because of their anatomical similarities to humans and partly because they are quick learners.

In the experiment, two macaques first used a joystick to gain a feel for the arm, which had shoulder joints, an elbow and a grasping claw with two mechanical fingers.

Then, just beneath the monkeys' skulls, the scientists implanted a grid about the size of a large freckle. It sat on the motor cortex, over a patch of cells known to signal arm and hand movements. The grid held 100 tiny electrodes, each connecting to a single neuron, its wires running out of the brain and to a computer.

The computer was programmed to analyze the collective firing of these 100 motor neurons, translate that sum into an electronic command and send it instantaneously to the arm, which was mounted flush with the left shoulder.

The scientists used the computer to help the monkeys move the arm at first, essentially teaching them with biofeedback.

After several days, the monkeys needed no help. They sat stationary in a chair, repeatedly manipulating the arm with their brain to reach out and grab grapes, marshmallows and other nuggets dangled in front of them. The snacks reached the mouths about two-thirds of the time — an impressive rate, compared with earlier work.

The monkeys learned to hold the grip open on approaching the food, close it just enough to hold the food and gradually loosen the grip when feeding.

On several occasions, a monkey kept its claw open on the way back, with the food stuck to one finger. At other times, a monkey moved the arm to lick the fingers clean or to push a bit of food into its mouth while ignoring a newly presented morsel.

The animals were apparently freelancing, discovering new uses for the arm, showing "displays of embodiment that would never be seen in a virtual environment," the researchers wrote.

"In the real world, things don't work as expected," said the senior author of the paper, Dr. Andrew Schwartz, a professor of neurobiology at the University of Pittsburgh. "The marshmallow sticks to your hand or the food slips, and you can't program a computer to anticipate all of that.

"But the monkeys' brains adjusted. They were licking the marshmallow off the prosthetic gripper, pushing food into their mouth, as if it were their own hand."

The co-authors were Meel Velliste, Sagi Perel, M. Chance Spalding and Andrew Whitford.

Scientists have to clear several hurdles before this technology becomes practical, experts said. Implantable electrode grids do not generally last more than a period of months, for reasons that remain unclear.

The equipment to read and transmit the signal can be cumbersome and in need of continual monitoring and recalibrating. And no one has yet demonstrated a workable wireless system that would eliminate the need for connections through the scalp.

Yet Schwartz's team, Donoghue's group and others are working on all of the problems, and the two macaques' rapid learning curve in taking ownership of a foreign limb gives scientists confidence that the main obstacles are technical and, thus, negotiable.

In an editorial accompanying the Nature study, Dr. John Kalaska, a neuroscientist at the University of Montreal, argued that after such bugs had been worked out, scientists might even discover areas of the cortex that allow more intimate, subtle control of prosthetic devices.

Such systems, Kalaska wrote, "would allow patients with severe motor deficits to interact and communicate with the world not only by the moment-to-moment control of the motion of robotic devices, but also in a more natural and intuitive manner that reflects their overall goals, needs and preferences."

They knew it was Viking DNA because it wore a tiny hat with little horns on it and kept asking for lutefisk.

Authentic Viking DNA Retrieved From 1,000-year-old Skeletons

ScienceDaily (May 28, 2008) — Although "Viking" literally means "pirate," recent research has indicated that the Vikings were also traders to the fishmongers of Europe. Stereotypically, these Norsemen are usually pictured wearing a horned helmet but in a new study, Jørgen Dissing and colleagues from the University of Copenhagen, investigated what went under the helmet; the scientists were able to extract authentic DNA from ancient Viking skeletons, avoiding many of the problems of contamination faced by past researchers.

Analysis of DNA from the remains of ancient humans provides valuable insights into such important questions as the origin of genetic diseases, migration patterns of our forefathers and tribal and family patterns.

Unfortunately, severe problems connected with the retrieval and analysis of DNA from ancient organisms (like the scarcity of intact molecules) are further aggravated in the case of ancient humans. This is because of the great risk of contamination with abundant DNA from modern humans. Humans, then, are involved at all steps, from excavation to laboratory analyses. This means that many previous results have subsequently been disputed as attributed to the presence of contaminant DNA, and some researchers even claim that it is impossible to obtain reliable results with ancient human DNA.

Using freshly sampled material from ten Viking skeletons from around AD 1,000, from a non-Christian burial site on the Danish island of Funen, Dissing and colleagues showed that it is indeed possible to retrieve authentic DNA from ancient humans.

Wearing protective suits, the researchers removed the teeth from the jaw at the moment the skeletons were unearthed when they had been untouched for 1,000 years. The subsequent laboratory procedures were also carefully controlled in order to avoid contamination.

Analysis of the Viking DNA showed no evidence of contamination with extraneous DNA, and typing of the endogenous DNA gave reproducible results and showed that these individuals were just as diverse as contemporary humans. A reliable retrieval of authentic DNA opens the way for a valuable use of prehistoric human remains to illuminate the genetic history of past and extant populations.

Making Science More Better For You on 05/28/08

2008-05-28T11:35:00.000-07:00

Headlines of the day

Nude Maid Stole Wife's Jewelry, Husband Says (tampabay.com)

Car carrying nude couple runs off road, hits sign PalmBeachPost.com

Hey Florida, put some clothes on.

Yo T-Rex, I’m Walkin’ Here

Giant Flying Reptiles Preferred To Walk

ScienceDaily (May 28, 2008) —New research into gigantic flying reptiles has found that they weren't all gull-like predators grabbing fish from the water but that some were strongly adapted for life on the ground.

Pterosaurs lived during the age of dinosaurs 230 to 65 million years ago. A new study by researchers at the University of Portsmouth on one particular type of pterosaur, the azhdarchids, claims they were more likely to stalk animals on foot than to fly.

Until now virtually all pterosaurs have been imagined by palaeontologists to have lived like modern seabirds: as gull- or pelican-like predators that flew over lakes and oceans, grabbing fish from the water. But a study of azhdarchid anatomy, footprints and the distribution of their fossils by Mark Witton and Dr Darren Naish shows that this stereotype does not apply to all flying reptiles and some were strongly adapted for terrestrial life.

Azhdarchids were probably better than any other ptersosaurs at walking because they had long limbs and skulls well suited for picking up small animals and other food from the ground.

Azhdarchids, named after the Uzbek word for 'dragon', were gigantic toothless pterosaurs. Azhdarchids include the largest of all pterosaurs: some had wingspans exceeding 10 metres and the biggest ones were as tall as a giraffe.

Dr Naish said: "Azhdarchids first became reasonably well known in the 1970s but how they lived has been the subject of much debate. Originally described as vulture-like scavengers, they were later suggested to be mud-probers (sticking their long bills into the ground in search of prey), and later still suggested to make a living by flying over the water's surface, grabbing fish.

"Other lifestyles have been suggested too. These lifestyles all seem radically divergent so Mark and I sat down and carefully examined the evidence and we argue that azhdarchids were specialised terrestrial stalkers. All the details of their anatomy, and the environment their fossils are found in, show that they made their living by walking around, reaching down to grab and pick up animals and other prey."

Animals like azhdarchids no longer exist but the closest analogues in the modern world are large ground-feeding birds like ground-hornbills and storks.

The researchers studied fossils in London, Portsmouth and Germany and compared the anatomy of azhdarchid with those of modern animals. This showed that azhdarchids were strikingly different from mud-probers and animals that grab prey from the water's surface while in flight.

Dr Naish said: "We also worked out the range of motion possible in the azhdarchid neck: this bizarrely stiff neck has previously been a problem for other ideas about azhdarchid lifestyle, but it fits with our model as all a terrestrial stalker needs to do its raise and lower its bill tip to the ground."

Other aspects of azhdarchid anatomy, such as their relatively small padded feet and long but weak jaws often pose problems in other proposed lifestyles but fit perfectly with the terrestrial stalker hypothesis. Mr Witton said: "The small feet of azhdarchids were no good for wading around lake margins or swimming should they land on water but are excellent for strutting around on land. As for what azhdarchids would eat, they'd have snapped up bite-size animals or even bits of fruit. But if your skull is over two metres in length then bite-size includes everything up to a dinosaur the size of a fox."

The researchers found that over 50 percent of azhdarchid fossils come from sediments that were laid down inland. Significantly, the only articulated azhdarchid fossils we have come from these inland sediments.

“Pterosaurs lived during the age of dinosaurs 230 to 65 million years ago.:

Yeah, well that certainly narrows it down.

Risky Behavior among Teens—we’re shocked

Energy drinks linked to risky behavior among teenagers
By Tara Parker-Pope/International Heral Tribune
Published: May 27, 2008

Health researchers have identified a surprising new predictor for risky behavior among teenagers and young adults: the energy drink.

Super-caffeinated energy drinks, with names like Red Bull, Monster, Full Throttle and Amp, have surged in popularity in the past decade. About a third of 12- to 24-year-olds say they regularly down energy drinks, which account for more than $3 billion in annual sales in the United States.

The trend has been the source of growing concern among health researchers and school officials. Around the country, the drinks have been linked with reports of nausea, abnormal heart rhythms and emergency room visits.

In Colorado Springs, several high school students last year became ill after drinking Spike Shooter, a high caffeine drink, prompting the principal to ban the beverages. In March, four middle school students in Broward County, Florida, went to the emergency room with heart palpitations and sweating after drinking the energy beverage Redline. In Tigard, Oregon, teachers this month sent parents e-mail alerting them that students who brought energy drinks to school were "literally drunk on a caffeine buzz or falling off a caffeine crash."

New research suggests the drinks are associated with a health issue far more worrisome than the jittery effects of caffeine — risk taking.
In March, The Journal of American College Health published a report on the link between energy drinks, athletics and risky behavior. The study's author, Kathleen Miller, an addiction researcher at the University of Buffalo, says it suggests that high consumption of energy drinks is associated with "toxic jock" behavior, a constellation of risky and aggressive behaviors including unprotected sex, substance abuse and violence.

The finding doesn't mean the drinks cause bad behavior. But the data suggest that regular consumption of energy drinks may be a red flag for parents that their children are more likely to take risks with their health and safety. "It appears the kids who are heavily into drinking energy drinks are more likely to be the ones who are inclined toward taking risks," Miller said.

The American Beverage Association says its members don't market energy drinks to teenagers. "The intended audience is adults," said Craig Stevens, a spokesman. He says the marketing is meant for "people who can actually afford the two or three bucks to buy the products."

The drinks include a variety of ingredients in different combinations: plant-based stimulants like guarana, herbs like ginkgo and ginseng, sugar, amino acids including taurine as well as vitamins. But the main active ingredient is caffeine.

Caffeine content varies. A 12-ounce serving of Amp contains 107 milligrams of caffeine, compared with 34 to 38 milligrams for the same amount of Coca-Cola or Pepsi. Monster has 120 milligrams and Red Bull has 116. Higher on the spectrum, Spike Shooter contains 428 milligrams of caffeine in 12 ounces, and Wired X344 contains 258.

Stevens points out that "mainstream" energy drinks often have less caffeine than a cup of coffee. At Starbucks, the caffeine content varies depending on the drink, from 75 milligrams in a 12-ounce cappuccino or latte to as much as 250 milligrams in a 12-ounce brewed coffee.

One concern about the drinks is that because they are served cold, they may be consumed in larger amounts and more quickly than hot coffee drinks, which are sipped. Another worry is the increasing popularity of mixing energy drinks with alcohol. The addition of caffeine can make alcohol users feel less drunk, but motor coordination and visual reaction time are just as impaired as when they drink alcohol by itself, according to an April 2006 study in the medical journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

"You're every bit as drunk, you're just an awake drunk," said Mary Claire O'Brien, associate professor in the departments of emergency medicine and public health services at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina

O'Brien surveyed energy drink and alcohol use among college students at 10 universities in North Carolina. The study, published this month in Academic Emergency Medicine, showed that students who mixed energy drinks with alcohol got drunk twice as often as those who consumed alcohol by itself and were far more likely to be injured or require medical treatment while drinking. Energy drink mixers were more likely to be victims or perpetrators of aggressive sexual behavior. The effect remained even after researchers controlled for the amount of alcohol consumed.

Energy drink marketers say they don't encourage consumers to mix the drinks with alcohol. Michelle Naughton, a spokeswoman for PepsiCo, which markets Amp, said, "We expect consumers to enjoy our products responsibly."

That’s odd, we thought the energy drinks were part of the risky behavior. You know, sort of like product placement for adolescents.

Making Science More Better For You on 05/23/08

2008-05-23T13:30:00.000-07:00

We’re kind of surprised that the structure of the receptor was a mystery. It’s located right next to the pork and cold beer receptors.

Some Like It Hot! Structure Of Receptor For Hot Chili Pepper And Pain Revealed

ScienceDaily (May 22, 2008) — You can now not only feel the spicy kick of a jalapeno pepper, you can also see it in full 3D, thanks to researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

Using sophisticated equipment, the research team led by Dr Theodore G. Wensel, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at BCM, generated the first three dimensional view of the protein that allows you to sense the heat of a hot pepper.

"This protein, known as TRPV1, not only senses spicy foods, but also makes it possible to feel real heat and the pain and inflammation related to other medical conditions," said Wensel, senior author on the study. "This method of viewing the protein now gives us the chance to clearly see the functional relationship between outside stimuli and the nerve cell."

The outside stimulus used in this study was the heat of a chili pepper. It has been known for years that the burning sensation results from the action of a chemical known as capsaicin on TRPV1 found on the nerve cell membrane. TRPV1 is an ion channel, a tiny pore on the cell membrane that allows chemicals such as calcium to flux in and out.

"Any time you feel a burn or pain sensation, it is mediated by a TRPV1 channel. Different levels of heat are mediated by different TRP channels," said Dr. Vera Moiseenkova-Bell, a postdoctoral associate in Wensel's laboratory at BCM and first author of the study. "They are all related but each is regulated in a different manner."

Wensel said the three-dimensional image of TRPV1 revealed surprising information about its structure. It is made up of a pore domain embedded in the cell membrane, and a "hanging basket" of regulatory domains that extend into the interior of the cell.

"It's an unusual thing. There is a whole hollow 'basket' area but we don't know what's that's for," Wensel said. "Now the search is on to understand how the 'basket' area regulates the channel."

Isolating TRPV1 gives researchers an idea of how other channels are structured as well.

"Visualization of TRPV1 gives us insight on other TRP channels since they are structurally similar," said Moiseenkova-Bell. "Pharmaceutical companies target these TRP channels to make sure the drug binds properly. With this first structure we can start to build models of binding sites and hopefully in the future design more effective pharmaceuticals for a wide range of medical conditions."

Studying these channels is nothing new. In the past, scientists could measure the activity in the cells but it was unclear what each channel was responding to. Determining which proteins interacted with TRPV1, however, required Wensel's lab to create a purified model.

The protein had to be removed from cells, purified, and reconstituted in a synthetic membrane so researchers could control channel activity.

"Since calcium is involved in cell signaling, following the calcium movement confirmed the protein is active," said Wensel. "We are the first group to purify a TRPV1 channel and control what goes in and out when the channel opens."

The report appears in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Others who took part in this work are Dr. Lia Stanicu, of Purdue University, Dr. Irina Serysheva, adjunct associate professor of biochemistry at BCM, and BCM graduate student, Ben J. Tobe.

Funding for this work came from the National Institutes of Health.

Making Science More Better For You on 05/22/08

2008-05-22T09:48:00.000-07:00

Headline of the day

European Court agrees to hear chimp's plea for human rights
(This Is London.co.uk)

If they can’t have him declared “a person,” maybe they can have him recognized as a European.

Making Science More Better For You on 05/19/08

2008-05-19T10:30:00.000-07:00

Headlines of the day

Woman dancing on bar sets customer on fire in Miami-Dade
(SunSentinal.com)

He lingered near the wood chipper ... then he dove in (TwinCities.com)

Wow, it’s a good thing scientists would never do something like that with cloned humans. Isn’t it? Anyway, it is for the greater good.

Monkeys genetically modified to have Huntington's
By Will Dunham
Posted 4:05 pm EDT

WASHINGTON, May 18, 2008 (Reuters) — Scientists have created monkeys genetically modified to have Huntington's disease in an effort to gain a deeper understanding of the fatal ailment and uncover clues to possible new treatments.

In the journal Nature on Sunday, the researchers said one of two surviving rhesus macaque monkeys engineered to have the defective gene that causes Huntington's in humans already is showing tell-tale symptoms at age 10 months.

Huntington's -- incurable and hereditary -- is caused by a single abnormal gene in which certain nerve cells in the brain waste away. People are born with the gene but symptoms typically do not appear until middle age.

Researchers often study laboratory animals such as mice to get insights into the underlying biology of diseases. But monkeys and other primates are more similar to people than rodents in physiological, neurological and genetic features.

The scientists at Emory University's Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta said the monkeys are the first primates genetically modified to have a human disease.

They hope studying the monkeys will allow for greater knowledge of Huntington's and ideas for new drugs.

"Rodent species can capture some of the characteristics of the disease, but they have not been satisfactory in being able to really capture the essence of the disease," Stuart Zola, head of the Yerkes center, said in a telephone interview.

"Now we have a genetically modified nonhuman primate that really has captured the clinical signs that we see in patients with Huntington's disease."

Those with the progressive, degenerative disease experience uncontrolled movements, emotional disturbances and mental deterioration.

Drugs can help manage symptoms but do not stop the physical and mental decline. People typically die within 10 to 15 years after symptoms arise.

The researchers said they chose Huntington's as the disease for creating the genetically modified monkeys with an eye toward simplicity -- because it is linked to mutations in a single gene rather than multiple genes.

Zola said the achievement could pave the way for creating genetically modified primates with other neurodegenerative ailments such as Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease.

"This research allows scientists to advance beyond mouse models, which do not replicate all of the changes in the brain and behavior that humans with Huntington's disease experience," said John Harding, a primate resources official at the National Institutes of Health, which funded the study.

Using so-called viral vector technology, the researchers transferred the Huntington's gene into a monkey egg cell. After using in vitro fertilization, the egg grew into a four-cell embryo and was then placed in the womb of a female monkey acting as a surrogate mother.

Of the five baby monkeys born using this process, two died within about a day, another one died in about a month and two are still living at age 10 months, according to Anthony Chan of the Yerkes center and Emory University School of Medicine,

One of the two surviving monkeys has developed symptoms including involuntary movements of the hands and face, Chan said. The other has no symptoms of the disease yet but may develop them later, he added.

We bet that if you dial 1-800 Slippery Slope, one of these jokers picks up the phone.

About that slippery slope...We're starting to get the impression that we are the only ones who ever saw "The Island of Lost Souls," with Charles Laughton.

MPs back creation of human-animal embryos
(Cow /Mouse admixed embryos)

Mark Henderson and Francis Elliott

British scientists will be allowed to research devastating diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s using human-animal embryos, after the House of Commons tonight rejected a ban.

An amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill that would have outlawed the creation of “human admixed embryos” for medical research was defeated in a free vote by a majority of 160, preserving what Gordon Brown regards as a central element of the legislation.

The Government, however, is braced for defeat tomorrow on a separate clause that would scrap the requirement that fertility clinics consider a child’s “need for a father” before treating patients. MPs will also tomorrow consider amendments that would cut the legal limit for abortion from 24 weeks to 22 or 20 weeks.

A second amendment, that would have banned the creation only of “true hybrids” made by fertilising an animal egg with human sperm, or vice-versa, was also defeated by a majority of 63. Another free vote later tonight is expected to approve the use of embryo-screening to create “saviour siblings” suitable to donate umbilical cord blood to sick children.

Edward Leigh, Conservative MP for Gainsborough, moving the amendment to ban all admixed embryos, said mingling animal and human DNA crossed an “ultimate boundary”. He said that exaggerated claims were giving patients false hope and that the dangers of the research were unknown.

He said: "In many ways we are like children playing with landmines without any concept of the dangers of the technology that we are handling.”

Mark Simmonds, a shadow health minister, who moved the amendment to ban “true hybrids”, said there was no compelling evidence of their research utility.

Evan Harris, Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West, challenged those who accepted admixed embryos in principle but rejected “true hybrids” to explain the ethical difference between an embryo that was 99 per cent human and one that was 50 per cent human.

Dawn Primarolo, the Health Minister, agreed: “Once we go down that road it seems illogical to oppose a particular mix.” Ms Primarolo said the shortage of human eggs was the major barrier to embryonic stem cell research. The minister admitted that the Bill “was not a promise” that cures to diseases could be found. “It’s an aspiration that it may.”

The amendment to ban all admixed embryos was defeated by 336 votes to 176. The prohibition on true hybrids was defeated by 286 votes to 223.

The main type of admixed embryo permitted by the Bill are “cytoplasmic hybrids” or “cybrids”, made by moving a human nucleus into an empty animal egg. These are genetically 99.9 per cent human. As well as true hybrids, it also allows chimeras that combine human and animal cells and transgenic human embryos that include a little animal DNA.

The most immediate implication of the Commons vote will be to allow teams at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and King’s College, London, who already hold licences to create a particular type of admixed embryo, to continue their research.

Though they were cleared to start these experiments by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority in January, these licences would have been rescinded had MPs voted for a ban.

Both teams are trying to create cybrids, which could carry the DNA of patients with genetic conditions to create stem-cell models.

The idea is to make stem cell models of diseases, to study their progress and to test new treatments. Human eggs could be used, but they are in short supply as they cannot be donated without risk to women.

It is legal to culture admixed embryos for a maximum of 14 days but it is illegal to transfer them to a human or animal womb. A Times/Populus poll found last month that 50 per cent of the public supports this work, with only 30 per cent opposed.
The decision will also encourage a third team, who plans to use admixed embryos to study motor neuron disease, to apply for a licence. The group, led by Professor Chris Shaw of the Institute of Psychiatry in London, had been waiting for the vote.

Professor Shaw said: “It will allow us to forge ahead on all fronts in our attempts to understand and develop therapies for a huge range of currently incurable diseases. Cures may be some years off, but this vote does mean we can use hybrid embryos, in addition to adult stem cells, in our search to understand what causes Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and motor neuron disease. Without a much better understanding of what is going wrong in the brain it is very unlikely we will be able to reverse the disease process.”

Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, of the National Institute for Medical Research in London, said: “The positive vote is yet another endorsement for the progress of scientific enquiry, one that will greatly aid our understanding of normal embryonic development, and of many types of debilitating genetic disease.

“This understanding will ultimately give us the best chance of developing therapies for these diseases, for infertility and for a range of other medical conditions”.

Simon Denegri, chief executive of the Association for Medical Research Charities, said: “MPs have clearly listened to the strong arguments put forward by medical research charities, patient groups and scientists of the importance of this research to advancing our understanding of diseases and conditions that affect hundreds of thousands of people and their families in the UK. This is a good piece of legislation and its successful passage is in the public interest.”

No word yet on whether the mixed embryos area expected to back Labour or the Conservative candidate.

Making Science More Better For You on 05/16/08

2008-05-16T08:15:00.000-07:00

Headline of the day
Raccoon bite causes school to lock down in Swampscott (itemlive.com)
Swampscottians like to leave little to chance. You know the type—belt and suspenders.

Sure, we’ll say it— fat chance of that.
Obesity contributes to global warming: study

By Michael Kahn

GENEVA (Reuters) - Obesity contributes to global warming, too.

Obese and overweight people require more fuel to transport them and the food they eat, and the problem will worsen as the population literally swells in size, a team at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine says.

This adds to food shortages and higher energy prices, the school's researchers Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts wrote in the journal Lancet on Friday.

"We are all becoming heavier and it is a global responsibility," Edwards said in a telephone interview. "Obesity is a key part of the big picture."

At least 400 million adults worldwide are obese. The World Health Organization (WHO) projects by 2015, 2.3 billion adults will be overweight and more than 700 million will be obese.

In their model, the researchers pegged 40 percent of the global population as obese with a body mass index of near 30. Many nations are fast approaching or have surpassed this level, Edwards said.

BMI is a calculation of height to weight, and the normal range is usually considered to be 18 to 25, with more than 25 considered overweight and above 30 obese.

The researchers found that obese people require 1,680 daily calories to sustain normal energy and another 1,280 calories to maintain daily activities, 18 percent more than someone with a stable BMI.

Because thinner people eat less and are more likely to walk than rely on cars, a slimmer population would lower demand for fuel for transportation and for agriculture, Edwards said.

This is also important because 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions stem from agriculture, he added.

The next step is quantifying how much a heavier population is contributing to climate change, higher fuel prices and food shortages, he added.

"Promotion of a normal distribution of BMI would reduce the global demand for, and thus the price of, food," Edwards and Roberts wrote.

Instead of "Eat the rich," it's just a matter of time before it's 'Eat the fat."

Making Science More Better For You on 05/13/08

2008-05-13T09:13:00.000-07:00

Headline of the day

Pete Doherty sought help after trying to kill cat with shovel

Much like his band—Babywhosis—the headline works on so many different levels.

Seal caught on tape molesting a penguin
Eskimo Pie?

Making Science More Better For You on 05/12/08

2008-05-12T10:49:00.000-07:00

Headlines of the day
3 accused of using corpse head to smoke pot (Houston Chronicle)

We know it’s a creepy story, but it is the inspiration for what we think is the best-est name for a heavy metal band ever—Skull Bong

94-year-old mom on ATV kills son in farm accident (Detroit free press)
Make that “almost all terrain” vehicle.

We figure they looked like a cross between Porter Wagoner in a Nudie suit and the Gabor sisters on holiday.

Ancient sea creatures 'dressed up' in diamonds

A glimpse into prehistoric fashion has revealed that ancient sea creatures liked to doll themselves up with diamonds imported from outer space.

CNN reports that scientists have discovered that the organisms coated themselves with tiny diamonds made from carbon brought to Earth on the asteroid which may have wiped out dinosaurs.

Fossils of the single-celled creatures were discovered in the Umbria-Marche basin of eastern Italy.

The amoeba-like creatures made their own armour by sticking together sediment grains from the ocean floor.

Researchers collected the fossils from rock samples just above and below the sediment layer created by the massive asteroid impact 65 million years ago.

When the asteroid smashed into the Earth off the coast of Mexico the extreme pressure and temperatures generated manufactured diamonds.

Some of the tiny jewels were formed by crushing and heating Earthly graphite rock. But others were truly extraterrestrial, being made from carbon carried in the asteroid. The scientists found evidence of these microscopic diamonds in the fossils.

Other grains present were unusually rich in metals such as nickel and cobalt, indicating an extraterrestrial origin.

The organisms, known as agglutinated foraminifera, are thought to have selected the diamonds for their density.

Lead researcher Michael Kaminski, from University College London, told New Scientist magazine: "The foraminifera were deliberately using extraterrestrial diamonds in their shells."

Scientists still do not know how the creatures were able to pick out the densest grains, an ability they share with their modern descendants.

"Dude, even amoeba-like creatures like shinny things."

Making Science More Better For You on 05/06/08

2008-05-06T13:32:00.000-07:00

Can you hear me now?

Afghanistan Firefight Heard On Voice Mail

OTIS, Ore. (Fox 12-Oregon)-- An Oregon couple received a frightening phone call from their son in Afghanistan when he inadvertently called home during battle.

Stephen Phillips and other soldiers in his Army MP company were battling insurgents when his phone was pressed against his Humvee. It redialed and called his parents in the small Oregon town of Otis.

Sandie Petee, Phillips' mother, and her husband, Jeff Petee, weren't home at the time of the call. They returned home to find a three-minute voice mail on their answering machine.
Click here to find out more!

"His friend died a year ago in Iraq and I'm thinking, 'Oh my God, this may be the last time I hear my son's voice on the phone,'" Petee said.

They heard shooting, swearing and shouted pleas for more ammunition on the phone call from their son.

"They were pinned down and apparently his barrel was overheating," said Jeff Petee. "It's something a parent really doesn't want to hear. It's a heck of a message to get from your son in Afghanistan."

The three-minute call ended abruptly.

"You could hear him saying stuff like, he needs more ammo, or he needs another barrel," said John Petee, Phillips' brother. "At the end, you could hear a guy saying 'Incoming! RPG!' And then it cut off."

As soon as the voice mail stopped playing, the Petees began trying to reach their son in Afghanistan. The family figured out Petee had tried to call home earlier that day, but he didn't leave a message and the phone later redialed during battle.

They eventually reached their son.

"I finally got a hold of him," Sandie Petee said. "He was embarrassed, he said, 'Don't let Grandma hear it.'"

Stephen Phillips is scheduled to return home next month, when his tour is complete, his mother said.

Now that's a network.

Making Science More Better For You on 05/05/08

2008-05-05T10:48:00.000-07:00

Headlines of the day

Police: Mother shot 8-year-old daughter in leg to win $1 bet (Seboygan Press.com)
Oh yeah, Mother’s Day is May 11.

Cops arrest man who had 300 dead cats in freezers
(Sacramento Bee)
No restaurant jokes, please.

Who needs egg heads and book learnin’?

Clinton 'Not Going To Put My Lot In With Economists' on Gas Tax
Email

ABC News' Mary Bruce reports: Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., declined this morning to name a single economist who backs her call for a gas tax suspension.

"I'm not going to put my lot in with economists," Clinton said in an exclusive appearance on a special edition of "This Week" from Indianapolis.

In light of fierce criticism from economic experts, Clinton said, "We've been, for the last seven years, seeing a tremendous amount of government power and elite opinion basically behind policies that haven't worked well for the middle class and hard-working Americans. ... I know if we get it right, if we actually did it right, if we had a president who used all the tools of the presidency, we would design it in such a way that it would be implemented effectively."

The Democratic candidate also responded to claims that her proposal is not a "truthful response" to the soaring prices at the pump.

"This gas tax issue to me is very real, because I am meeting people across Indiana and North Carolina who drive for a living, who commute long distances, who would save money if the oil companies paid this $8 billion this summer, instead of it coming out of the pockets of consumers," Clinton said. "Now, look, I have long-term plans too. I mean, it's a misnomer to say this is all that I'm doing. It's not. I have a comprehensive long-term energy plan that would go right at dependence on foreign oil."

Clinton also differentiated her plan from that of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the likely Republican presidential nominee, who has also called for summer gas tax holiday.

"My proposal is very different from Sen. McCain," she said. "Sen. McCain has said take off the gas tax, don't pay for it, throw us further into deficit and debt. That is not what I've proposed. What I've proposed is that the oil companies pay the gas tax instead of consumers and drivers this summer."

Clinton has proposed using a windfall profits tax on oil companies to pay for the gas tax holiday. However, she also previously pledged to use windfall profits to create a strategic energy fund for renewable and alternative energies.

But when "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos asked if she had already spent the windfall profits tax, she said, "No ... the tax subsidies will go right into that [strategic energy fund]. I'm talking about something temporary this summer. My longer-term plan is, yes, to put an excess profits tax on the oil companies above a certain level of profit that would go in to help us make the transition."

Yeah, let’s have the oil companies pay the gas tax, cause they’d never think of passing the cost on to consumers. Nope, not those guys.

Making Science More Better For You on 04/30/08

2008-04-30T12:05:00.000-07:00

Headline of the day
Three-year-old boy takes 1st place in Minnesota mullet contest (Breitbart.,com)

Making Science More Better For You on 04/23/08

2008-04-23T11:23:00.000-07:00

Headlines of the day
Carnie has part of his thumb bitten off, is beaten with a stick (The Obscure Store)
We heard they were chanting, “Not one of us. We don’t accept you.”

Police say Marathon runner tried to kill wife (MetroWest Daily News
We presume their argument had run its course.

Celebrity grizzly kills Hollywood trainer (MSNBC)
More pilates than he could bear?

They just swim around all day, sipping tepid tea and reading Virginia Wolf.

No sex for all-girl fish species
A fish species, which is all female, has survived for 70,000 years without reproducing sexually, experts believe.

The BBC reports that scientists from the University of Edinburgh think the Amazon Molly may be employing special genetic survival "tricks" to avoid becoming extinct.

The species, found in Texas and Mexico, interacts with males of other species to trigger its reproduction process.

The offspring are clones of their mother and do not inherit any of the male's DNA.

Typically, when creatures reproduce asexually, harmful changes creep into their genes over many generations.

The species will eventually have problems reproducing and can often fall victim to extinction.

Scientists at Edinburgh University have been studying complex mathematical models on a highly powerful computing system to look at the case of the Amazon Molly.

Researchers calculated the time to extinction for the fish based on modelling genetic changes over many thousands of generations.

They are now able to say conclusively, for the first time, the fish ought to have become extinct within the past 70,000 years, based on the current simple models.

Scientists believe the fish, which are still thriving in rivers in south-east Texas and north-east Mexico, are using special genetic survival "tricks" to help them stay alive.

One theory is that the fish may occasionally be taking some of the DNA from the males that trigger reproduction, in order to refresh their gene pool.

Species tricks

Dr Laurence Loewe, of the university's School of Biological Sciences, said: "What we have shown now is that this fish really has something special going on and that some special tricks exist to help this fish survive.

"Maybe there is still occasional sex with strangers that keeps the species alive. Future research may give us some answers."

He added that their findings could also help them understand more about how other creatures operate.

"I think one of the interesting things is that we are learning more about how other species might use these tricks as well," he said.

"It might have a more general importance."

We figure this adds a whole new dimension to the term “cold fish.”

Making Science More Better For You on 04/16/08

2008-04-16T10:00:00.000-07:00

Headlines of the day

If you give Hamas a cookie. (Gawker) (actually from 04/15/08)

The clown community takes another hit with man's porn arrest (The Obscure Store)
Clearly, another icky day in clown town. So sad.

A political interlude…
We’re starting to get the feeling that whenever Bill Clinton looks in a mirror, he sees Jimmy Carter looking back at him. All this flailing about so he can prove he’s still relevant. Wouldn’t a gold chain and a Ferrari be easier on everyone?

It would appear that we often confuse having reasons with making decisions. Guess it really is all about the it, the eagle and the super eagle. And while we are on the topic, can anyone tell us why we ordered the roast beef?

Decision-making May Be Surprisingly Unconscious Activity

ScienceDaily (Apr. 15, 2008) — Contrary to what most of us would like to believe, decision-making may be a process handled to a large extent by unconscious mental activity. A team of scientists has unraveled how the brain actually unconsciously prepares our decisions. Even several seconds before we consciously make a decision its outcome can be predicted from unconscious activity in the brain.

This is shown in a study by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, in collaboration with the Charité University Hospital and the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Berlin. The researchers from the group of Professor John-Dylan Haynes used a brain scanner to investigate what happens in the human brain just before a decision is made. "Many processes in the brain occur automatically and without involvement of our consciousness. This prevents our mind from being overloaded by simple routine tasks. But when it comes to decisions we tend to assume they are made by our conscious mind. This is questioned by our current findings."

In the study, published in Nature Neuroscience, participants could freely decide if they wanted to press a button with their left or right hand. They were free to make this decision whenever they wanted, but had to remember at which time they felt they had made up their mind. The aim of the experiment was to find out what happens in the brain in the period just before the person felt the decision was made. The researchers found that it was possible to predict from brain signals which option participants would take up to seven seconds before they consciously made their decision. Normally researchers look at what happens when the decision is made, but not at what happens several seconds before. The fact that decisions can be predicted so long before they are made is a astonishing finding.

This unprecedented prediction of a free decision was made possible by sophisticated computer programs that were trained to recognize typical brain activity patterns preceding each of the two choices. Micropatterns of activity in the frontopolar cortex were predictive of the choices even before participants knew which option they were going to choose. The decision could not be predicted perfectly, but prediction was clearly above chance. This suggests that the decision is unconsciously prepared ahead of time but the final decision might still be reversible.

"Most researchers investigate what happens when people have to decide immediately, typically as a rapid response to an event in our environment. Here we were focusing on the more interesting decisions that are made in a more natural, self-paced manner", Haynes explains.

More than 20 years ago the American brain scientist Benjamin Libet found a brain signal, the so-called "readiness-potential" that occurred a fraction of a second before a conscious decision. Libet’s experiments were highly controversial and sparked a huge debate. Many scientists argued that if our decisions are prepared unconsciously by the brain, then our feeling of "free will" must be an illusion. In this view, it is the brain that makes the decision, not a person’s conscious mind. Libet’s experiments were particularly controversial because he found only a brief time delay between brain activity and the conscious decision.

In contrast, Haynes and colleagues now show that brain activity predicts -- even up to 7 seconds ahead of time -- how a person is going to decide. But they also warn that the study does not finally rule out free will: "Our study shows that decisions are unconsciously prepared much longer ahead than previously thought. But we do not know yet where the final decision is made. We need to investigate whether a decision prepared by these brain areas can still be reversed."

Free will is an idle threat. Pass it on.

We guess the reason the researchers think they discovered something is that they don’t own any Motorhead albums. How do you say “dude” in Neanderthal, anyways.

Neanderthals speak again after 30,000 years

LONDON, Apr. 16, 2008 (Reuters) — Neanderthals have spoken out for the first time in 30,000 years, with the help of scientists who have simulated their voices using fossil evidence and a computer synthesizer.

Robert McCarthy, an anthropologist at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, used new reconstructions of Neanderthal vocal tracts to work out how they would have sounded, NewScientist.com reported on Wednesday.

The conclusion is that Neanderthals spoke, but sounded rather different to us. Specifically, the ancient humans' lacked the "quantal vowel" sounds that underlie modern speech and which provide cues that help speakers understand one another.

In contrast to a modern human "e," the Neanderthal version lacks a quantal hallmark, which helps a listener distinguish the word "beat" from "bit," for instance.
To listen to a simulation of the modern human voice, visit: http://media.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/av/dn13672A2.wav

McCarthy, who based his reconstructions on 50,000-year-old fossils from France, aims eventually to simulate an entire Neanderthal sentence.

Neanderthals were a dead-end offshoot of the human line who inhabited Europe and parts of west and central Asia. Researchers believe they survived in Europe until the arrival of modern humans about 30,000 years ago.

They’re not dead, just sleeping.

Making Science More Better For You on 04/14/08

2008-04-14T10:45:00.000-07:00

Headline of the day
Parents Fight Over Which Gang Toddler Should Join
Police: Mother A Crip, Father A Westside Baller (ABC 7 In Denver)
It's just like being the child of a Deke—either way, the kid's a legacy.

We got it. How about if we develop a TV show around this called “Pimp Your Kid?”

‘we have the technology that can make a cloned child’

By Steve Connor, Science Editor/The INDEPENDENT/U.K.
Monday, 14 April 2008

A new form of cloning has been developed that is easier to carry out than the technique used to create Dolly the sheep, raising fears that it may one day be used on human embryos to produce "designer" babies.

Scientists who used the procedure to create baby mice from the skin cells of adult animals have found it to be far more efficient than the Dolly technique, with fewer side effects, which makes it more acceptable for human use.

The mice were made by inserting skin cells of an adult animal into early embryos produced by in-vitro fertilisation (IVF). Some of the resulting offspring were partial clones but some were full clones – just like Dolly.

Unlike the Dolly technique, however, the procedure is so simple and efficient that it has raised fears that it will be seized on by IVF doctors to help infertile couples who are eager to have their own biological children.

One scientist said this weekend that a maverick attempt to perform the technique on humans is now too real to ignore. "It's unethical and unsafe, but someone may be doing it today," said Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer of American biotechnology company Advanced Cell Technology.

"Cloning isn't here now, but with this new technique we have the technology that can actually produce a child. If this was applied to humans it would be enormously important and troublesome," said Dr Lanza, whose company has pioneered developments in stem cells and cell reprogramming.

"It raises the same issues as reproductive cloning and although the technology for reproductive cloning in humans doesn't exist, with this breakthrough we now have a working technology whereby anyone, young or old, fertile or infertile, straight or gay can pass on their genes to a child by using just a few skin cells," he said.

The technique involves the genetic reprogramming of skin cells so they revert to an embryonic-like state. Last year, when the breakthrough was used on human skin cells for the first time, it was lauded by the Catholic Church and President George Bush as a morally acceptable way of producing embryonic stem cells without having to create or destroy human embryos.

However, the same technique has already been used in another way to reproduce offspring of laboratory mice that are either full clones or genetic "chimeras" of the adult mouse whose skin cells were reprogrammed.

The experiments on mice demonstrated that it is now possible in principle to take a human skin cell, reprogramme it back to its embryonic state and then insert it into an early human embryo. The resulting child would share some of the genes of the person who supplied the skin tissue, as well as the genes of the embryo's two parents.

These offspring are chimeras – a genetic mix of two or more individuals – because some of their cells derive from the embryo and some from the skin cell. Technically, such a child would have three biological parents. Human chimeras occur naturally when two embryos fuse in the womb and such people are often normal and healthy. Dr Lanza says there is no reason to believe that a human chimera created by the new technique would be unhealthy.

Furthermore, studies on mice have shown that it is possible to produce fully cloned offspring that are 100 per cent genetically identical to the adult. This was achieved by using a type of defective mouse embryo with four sets of chromosomes instead of the normal two.

This "tetraploid" embryo only developed into the placenta of the foetus and when it was injected with a reprogrammed skin cell, the rest of the foetus developed from this single cell to become a full clone of the adult animal whose skin was used.

None of the scientists working on cell reprogramming to produce induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells – as the embryonic cells are known – plan to use it for human reproductive medicine. Their main aim is to produce stem cells for the therapeutic treatment of conditions such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and stroke.

However, Dr Lanza said that the mouse experiments his company had done demonstrated how easily the technology could be used to produce cloned or chimeric babies by inserting iPS cells into early human embryos. This is not banned in many countries, where legislation has not kept pace with scientific developments.

In Britain, the Human Tissue and Embryos Bill going through Parliament does not mention the iPS technique, although experts believe that the new law should make it illegal because it involves genetic modification of cells that become part of the embryo.

"In addition to the great therapeutic promise demonstrated by this technology, the same technology opens a whole new can of worms," Dr Lanza said.

"At this point there are no laws or regulations for this kind of thing and the bizarre thing is that the Catholic Church and other traditional stem-cell opponents think this technology is great when in reality it could in the end become one of their biggest nightmares," he said. "It is quite possible that the real legacy of this whole new programming technology is that it will be introducing the era of designer babies.

"So for instance if we had a few skin cells from Albert Einstein, or anyone else in the world, you could have a child that is say 10 per cent or 70 per cent Albert Einstein by just injecting a few of their cells into an embryo," he said.

We wonder who is more excited at the thought—the NFL or the pharmaceutical companies.

Making Science More Better For You on 04/11/08

2008-04-11T10:40:00.000-07:00

"Yeah, and we’re going to keep it up until you put some clothes on and quit walking around naked. And while you're at it, we want you to play the Stooges record “Fun House,” real loud."

Aliens Attacking Bosnian Man with Meteorites
By Bill Christensen

Five meteorites have fallen on Radivoje Lajic's house in the past six months. There is only one possible conclusion. Lajic says:

"I am obviously being targeted by extraterrestrials. I don't know what I have done to annoy them but there is no other explanation that makes sense. The chance of being hit by a meteorite is so small that getting hit five times has to be deliberate."

Belgrade University scientists have confirmed that all of the rocks presented to them by Lajic are meteorites.

The first meteorite smashed into his house last November. Since that time, four more have hit his home.

Lajic has since installed a steel-girder reinforced roof on his home in Gornja Lamovite.

"I am being targeted by aliens. They are playing games with me. I don't know why they are doing this."

Although this story is somewhat hard to believe (it would be helpful to see the meteors in situ, having blown through the house, for example), it is as good a reason as any to discuss orbital kinetic energy weapons.

A tip of our hat to our Kansas Konnection for the story.

Making Science More Better For You on 04/09/08

2008-04-09T13:57:00.000-07:00

"Well it's different for me. For one thing, I'm a doctor and for another, I'm only doing this for science, so that makes it different. It's not like I'm doing this to get high."

Scientists take drugs to boost brain power: study (AP)

Twenty percent of scientists admit to using performance-enhancing prescription drugs for non-medical reasons, according to a survey released Wednesday by Nature, Britain's top science journal.

The overwhelming majority of these med-taking brainiacs said they indulged in order to "improve concentration," and 60 percent said they did so on a daily or weekly basis.

The 1,427 respondents -- most of them in the United States -- completed an informal, online survey posted on the "Nature Network" Web forum, a discussion site for scientists operated by the Nature Publishing Group.

More than a third said that they would feel pressure to give their children such drugs if they knew other kids at school were also taking them.

"These are academics working in scientific institutions," Ruth Francis, who handles press relations for the group, told AFP.

The survey focused on three drugs widely available by prescription or via the Internet.

Ritalin, a trade name for methylphenidate, is a stimulant normally used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, especially in children. Modafinil -- marketed at Provigil -- is prescribed to treat sleep disorders, but is also effective against general fatigue and jet lag.

Both medications are common currency on college campuses, used as "study aids" to sharpen performance and wakefulness.

"It doesn't seem to be causing too much trouble since most [students] use the drugs not to get high but to function better," Brian Doyle, a clinical pyschiatrist at Georgetown University Medical Centre, told a US newspaper last month. "When exams are over, they go back to normal and stop abusing the drugs."

Other experts expressed more concern about what the survey revealed.

"It alerted us to the fact that scientists, like others, are looking for short cuts," Wilson Compton, director of epidemiology and prevention research at the US National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA), told AFP.

Ritalin, he noted, can become addictive, even if it has proven safe and effective when taken as prescribed.

The third class of drugs included in the survey was beta blockers, prescribed for cardiac arrhythmia and popular among performers due to its anti-anxiety effect.

Of the 288 scientists who said that had taken one or more of these drugs outside of a medical context, three-fifths had used Ritalin, and nearly half Provigil. Only 15 percent were fans of beta blockers.

More than a third procured their meds via the Internet, with the rest buying them in pharmacy.

Other reasons cited for popping pills were focusing on a specific task, and counteracting jet lag.

Almost 70 percent of 1,258 respondents who answered the question said they would be willing to risk mild side effects in order to "boost your brain power" by taking cognitive-enhancing drugs.

Half of the drug-takers reported such effects, including headaches, jitteriness, anxiety and sleeplessness.

Wilson of the NIDA expressed surprise at the rate of substance abuse shown, but cautioned that the survey did not meet rigorous scientific standards.

"This is a volunteer poll of people responding to an Internet survey. There might be an over-representation," he said.

But previous research has shown that, as the boundary between treating illness and enhancing wellbeing continues to blur, taking performance-boosting products continues to gain in cultural acceptance.

"Like the rise in cosmetic surgery, use of cognitive enhancers is likely to increase as bioethical and psychological concerns are overcome," opined Nature in a commentary.

In the survey, 80 percent of all the scientists -- even those who did not use these drugs -- defended the right of "healthy humans" to take them as work boosters, and more than half said their use should not be restricted, even for university entrance exams.

More than 57 percent of the respondents were 35 years old or younger.

So, do you think that when Bugs Bunny asked , "What's up Doc," he already knew that the Doctor was what was up?

Making Science More Better For You on 04/03/08

2008-04-03T10:40:00.000-07:00

Headline of the day

Sex that lasts 1 to 2 minutes is "too short," say therapists

Yeah, but if it lasted longer, they'd be out of a job.

Who’s smarter than the Smithsonian? Well if you’re a fifth-grader, it seems you may have a shot.

5th-Grader Finds Mistake at Smithsonian

ALLEGAN, Mich. (AP) - Is fifth-grader Kenton Stufflebeam smarter than the Smithsonian? The 11-year-old boy, who lives in Allegan but attends Alamo Elementary School near Kalamazoo, went with his family during winter break to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington.

Since it opened in 1981, millions of people have paraded past the museum's Tower of Time, a display involving prehistoric time. Not one visitor had reported anything amiss with the exhibit until Kenton noticed that a notation, in bold lettering, identified the Precambrian as an era.

Kenton knew that was wrong. His fifth-grade teacher, John Chapman, had nearly made the same mistake in a classroom earth-science lesson before catching himself.

"I knew Mr. Chapman wouldn't tell all these students" bad information, the boy told the Kalamazoo Gazette for a story published Wednesday.

So Kevin Stufflebeam took his son to the museum's information desk to report Kenton's concern on a comment form. Last week, the boy received a letter from the museum acknowledging that his observation was "spot on."

"The Precambrian is a dimensionless unit of time, which embraces all the time between the origin of Earth and the beginning of the Cambrian Period of geologic time," the letter says.

The solution to the problem would not involve advanced science but rather simply painting over the word "era," the note says.

"We did forward a copy of the comment and our paleobiology department's response to the head of the exhibits department," said Lorraine Ramsdell, educational technician for the museum.

While no previous visitors to the museum had brought up the error, it has long rankled the paleobiology department's staff, who noticed it even before the Tower of Time was erected 27 years ago, she said.

"The question is, why was it put up with that on it in the first place?" Ramsdell said.

Excited as he was to receive the correspondence from museum officials, he couldn't help but point out that it was addressed to Kenton Slufflebeam.

We thought that was the Mezo-whatsis. And just how “pale” is their paleobiology department? Is that a code word.

Is covered with pink gas or blue gas. They grow up so fast.

Scots scientists help to discover 'youngest planet'

By Jamie Beatson

SCOTS astronomers have discovered a baby planet believed to be the youngest yet.

The planet - still in the process of forming and encased in a "womb" of gas and dust - was found by scientists from St Andrews University, who were working with colleagues from England and the US.

It is thought the planet - named HL Taub - could be as little as 1600 years old.

The Earth, by comparison, formed more than 4.6billion years ago.

The planet is located in the constellation of Taurus and is 520 light years away.

Using telescopes located across the US, the researchers spotted it as they monitored the formation of young star HL Tau, which the planet orbits.

Dr Jane Greaves, of the St Andrews University school of physics and astronomy, said the discovery was "amazing" as they weren't even looking for it.

She said: "We caught this planet at its very, very earliest stages of forming - it is an embryo of a planet more than anything else."

Describing the new planet as a "really large ball of gas and dust", she said that it would crunch down over millions of years to the same size as Jupiter.

She added: "We took an image with a group of radio telescopes with much higher detail than anyone has ever managed before.

"The planet is not more than 100,000 years old - that's the equivalent of a day in a human life - but could be as little as 1600 years old.

"We had an inkling that by looking for dust grains - which are rocks the size of your fist - we could see if rocks were coming together around the star to form a planet."

She said it showed that astronomers should be open-minded in the search for an Earth-like planet.

Making Science More Better For You on 04/01/08

2008-04-01T11:59:00.000-07:00

Headlines of the day
Football player arrested for trying to pee on the dance floor (The Obscure Store)

EVIL: Group of Third Graders Plot To Attack Teacher (Drudge)

This just in from our pointing out the obvious and calling it science department:

Failure to perform—in public—can be a drag. Film at 11.

Why High School Boys Dodge Gym Class

ScienceDaily (Apr. 1, 2008) — As obesity and inactivity among youth becomes a growing concern for North American families, new research based at The University of Western Ontario is asking why some high school boys are reluctant to participate in Grade 9 health and physical education classes.

And while a majority of the research being publicly debated links the inactivity to television viewing and hours logged on the computer time, Michael Kehler, an associate professor at Western's Faculty of Education, is examining the relationship between perceived masculinity, body image, and health.

In Ontario, all high school students are required to take at least one course in health and physical education. Most boys choose to take the mandatory course in Grade 9. Others postpone the 'Phys Ed' requirement until a later year when the topic is related to health issues and does not include activities in the gymnasium or on the playing field.

Kehler is speaking to young men from the London, Ontario region to better understand the degree body image in adolescent boys is a factor contributing to whether or not they continue pursuing physical activity.

"There appears to be a link between body image, masculinity, and long-term apathy toward physical activity and ultimately one's quality of life," Kehler said.

"So much research has been done examining girls and issues around body image but very little research has explored the relationship between boys, health and body image in secondary schools.

"If a boy is thinner or heavier than he would like to be, the stress and anxiety of participating in physical education may be prohibitive. That anxiety plays out in a number of ways from disinterest to genuine fear of being harassed."

The study, in collaboration with Kevin Wamsley of Western's Faculty of Health Sciences and Michael Atkinson of the University of Loughborough (U.K.), involves one-on-one interviews, as well as observations in physical education classes and weblogging.

"Often boys who don't feel at ease are terrified to go to the locker room or class, fearing they will be mocked for their size, their lack of athletic prowess, or that they will fall victim to homophobia."

Adapted from materials provided by University of Western Ontario.

Yeah, Canada. It must be different up there.

Making Science More Better For You on 03/28/08

2008-03-28T11:14:00.000-07:00

Headline of the day

Man caught on tape having sex with a picnic table (The Obscure Store)

Which, we assume, he did with great relish.

A politcal interlude...

We have this reoccurring image of a woman in a pantsuit on the tarmac in Tuzla. She's crouched low and mouthing a single word—"serpentine."

Making Science More Better For You on 03/26/08

2008-03-26T13:53:00.000-07:00

Headlines of the day

Man Shooting Hole Through Wall Kills Wife
Deepwater Man Fatally Shoots Wife While Installing Satellite TV
KCTV5.com

Referee Cited For Being Drunk On Soccer Field (WCAU-TV)

No beer at barbershop, attorney general says (Grand Rapids Press)

China uses panda porn and sexercise to increase population of national icon (Times Online.com.UK)
Does that make them guilty of "panda-ering?"

NE Phila. Retirees Forming a ''Virtual'' Bowling League (KYW News Radio)
It's what they do with their spare time.

Molester claims he was once sexually assaulted by Bigfoot (The Obscure Store)
Since that time, human contact has left him feeling unfulfilled.

Making Science More Better For You on 03/25/08

2008-03-25T13:47:00.000-07:00

Headline of the day
Salmonella stops town from showering (CNN)
Yeah, we think it smells fishy too.

Making Science More Better For You on 03/24/08

2008-03-24T09:58:00.000-07:00

Headlines of the day

Man declared dead feels 'pretty good' (CNN)

Easter Bunny injures child after getting fed up with his job (The Obscure Store)
The bunny's job, not the child's.
Ex-Homecoming Queen Accused Of Beating Sister With Leg In Trailer Sent To Rehab (WTAE)
The sister went to rehab, not the trailer.

A political interlude…

It’s nice to see that the race for the Democratic nomination is becoming rather “Dylanesque.”

Carville to Richardson: “Judas.”

Richardson to Carville: “I don’t believe you. You’re a liar.”

Richardson to Obama: “Play fucking loud.”

Maybe Obama should connect all the dots and give a speech at the Manchester Free Trade Hall.

Making Science More Better For You on 03/18/08

2008-03-18T12:49:00.000-07:00

Headline of the day

DOCTOR GETS THREE YEARS IN LIPOSUCTION DEATH...(Drudge)

Sure, I'll say it. "Dude, that must suck."

Making Science More Better For You on 03/17/08

2008-03-17T13:47:00.000-07:00

Headlines of the day

Go-cart scalps woman during birthday party (CNN)

Two-Faced Baby Hailed as a Miracle (CNN)

Restaurant owner has ham slam for prosciutto thief (Gloucester Daily Times)

Making Science More Better For You on 03/11/08

2008-03-11T13:08:00.001-07:00

Headline of the day

5Top: Actors who look like they smell bad (MSNBC)

They probably meant “earthy.”

This is how it starts. Hasn’t anyone see “ The Terminator?”
Bringing Second Life To Life: Researchers Create Character With Reasoning Abilities Of A Child

ScienceDaily (Mar. 10, 2008) — Today's video games and online virtual worlds give users the freedom to create characters in the digital domain that look and seem more human than ever before. But despite having your hair, your height, and your hazel eyes, your avatar is still little more than just a pretty face.
A group of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is working to change that by engineering characters with the capacity to have beliefs and to reason about the beliefs of others. The characters will be able to predict and manipulate the behavior of even human players, with whom they will directly interact in the real, physical world, according to the team.

At a recent conference on artificial intelligence, the researchers unveiled the "embodiment" of their success to date: "Eddie," a 4-year-old child in Second Life who can reason about his own beliefs to draw conclusions in a manner that matches human children his age.

"Current avatars in massively multiplayer online worlds -- such as Second Life -- are directly tethered to a user's keystrokes and only give the illusion of mentality," said Selmer Bringsjord, head of Rensselaer's Cognitive Science Department and leader of the research project. "Truly convincing autonomous synthetic characters must possess memories; believe things, want things, remember things."

Such characters can only be engineered by coupling logic-based artificial intelligence and computational cognitive modeling techniques with the processing power of a supercomputer, according to Bringsjord.

The principles and techniques that humans deploy in order to understand, predict, and manipulate the behavior of other humans is collectively referred to as a "theory of mind." Bringsjord's research group is now starting to engineer part of that theory, which would allow artificial agents to understand, predict, and manipulate the behavior of other agents, in order to be genuine stand-ins for human beings or autonomous intellects in their own right.

The logico-mathematical theory will include rigorous, declarative definitions of all of the concepts central to a theory of the mind, including lying, betrayal, and even evil, according to Bringsjord.

To test "Eddie's" reasoning powers, the group created a demo in Second Life that subjected their theory to a false-belief test.

In a typical real-life version of this test, a child witnesses a series of events in which Person A places an object (such as a teddy bear) in a certain location (such as a cabinet). Person A then leaves the room, and during his absence Person B moves the object to a new location (such as the refrigerator). The child is then asked to predict where Person A will look for the object when he gets back.

The right answer, of course, is the cabinet, but children age 4 and under will generally say the refrigerator because they haven't yet formed a theory of the mind of others.

The researchers recreated the same situation in Second Life, using an automated theorem prover coupled with procedures for converting conversational English in Second Life into formal logic, the native language of the prover.

When the code is executed, the software simulates keystrokes in Second Life. This enables control of "Eddie," who demonstrates an incorrect prediction of where Person A will look for the teddy bear -- a response consistent with that of a 4-year old child. But, in an instant, Eddie's mind can be improved, and if the test is run again, he makes the correct prediction.

"Our aim is not to construct a computational theory that explains and predicts actual human behavior, but rather to build artificial agents made more interesting and useful by their ability to ascribe mental states to other agents, reason about such states, and have -- as avatars -- states that are correlates to those experienced by humans," Bringsjord said. "Applications include entertainment and gaming, but also education and homeland defense."

This research is supported by IBM and other outside sponsors, and the team hopes to engineer a version of the Star Trek holodeck -- a virtual reality system used onboard the starships that allowed users to interact with the projected holograms of other individuals. Such a system could allow cognitively robust synthetic characters to interact directly with human beings, according to Bringsjord.

The proposed research would require the use of two of Rensselaer's state-of-the-art research facilities -- the Computational Center for Nanotechnology Innovations (CCNI) and the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC).

The most powerful university-based supercomputing system in the world, the CCNI is made up of massively parallel Blue Gene supercomputers, POWER-based Linux clusters, and AMD Opteron processor-based clusters, providing more than 100 teraflops of computing power.

Bringsjord is leading this project, with participation from Rensselaer doctoral students Andrew Shilliday, Joshua Taylor, and Micah Clark, as well as undergraduate researchers Ed Charpentier and Alexander Bringsjord.

Making Science More Better For You on 03/10/08

2008-03-10T12:40:00.000-07:00

Headline of the day
Southern Baptists Fight Climate Change...
Are they for it or against it? Either way, it sounds like a job for Moses.

All it took was a knock on the door from some mook selling magazines. Next thing you know, people are flushing all kinds of things down the toilet.

Prescription drugs found in drinking water across U.S.

A vast array of pharmaceuticals -- including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones -- have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.

Officials in Philadelphia say testing there discovered 56 pharmaceuticals or byproducts in treated drinking water.

To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe.

But the presence of so many prescription drugs -- and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen -- in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health.

In the course of a five-month inquiry, the AP discovered that drugs have been detected in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas -- from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit, Michigan, to Louisville, Kentucky. Map: See the cities where drugs were found in drinking water »

Water providers rarely disclose results of pharmaceutical screenings, unless pressed, the AP found. For example, the head of a group representing major California suppliers said the public "doesn't know how to interpret the information" and might be unduly alarmed.

How do the drugs get into the water?

People take pills. Their bodies absorb some of the medication, but the rest of it passes through and is flushed down the toilet. The wastewater is treated before it is discharged into reservoirs, rivers or lakes. Then, some of the water is cleansed again at drinking water treatment plants and piped to consumers. But most treatments do not remove all drug residue.

And while researchers do not yet understand the exact risks from decades of persistent exposure to random combinations of low levels of pharmaceuticals, recent studies -- which have gone virtually unnoticed by the general public -- have found alarming effects on human cells and wildlife.

A 'growing concern'

"We recognize it is a growing concern and we're taking it very seriously," said Benjamin H. Grumbles, assistant administrator for water at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Members of the AP National Investigative Team reviewed hundreds of scientific reports, analyzed federal drinking water databases, visited environmental study sites and treatment plants and interviewed more than 230 officials, academics and scientists. Video Watch more about what's in our drinking water »

They also surveyed the nation's 50 largest cities and a dozen other major water providers, as well as smaller community water providers in all 50 states.

Here are some of the key test results obtained by the AP:

• Officials in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, said testing there discovered 56 pharmaceuticals or byproducts in treated drinking water, including medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart problems. Sixty-three pharmaceuticals or byproducts were found in the city's watersheds.

• Anti-epileptic and anti-anxiety medications were detected in a portion of the treated drinking water for 18.5 million people in Southern California.

• Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey analyzed a Passaic Valley Water Commission drinking water treatment plant, which serves 850,000 people in Northern New Jersey, and found a metabolized angina medicine and the mood-stabilizing carbamazepine in drinking water.

• A sex hormone was detected in the drinking water of San Francisco, California.

• The drinking water for Washington, D.C., and surrounding areas tested positive for six pharmaceuticals.

The situation is undoubtedly worse than suggested by the positive test results in the major population centers documented by the AP.

Testing not required

The federal government doesn't require any testing and hasn't set safety limits for drugs in water.

Of the 62 major water providers contacted, the drinking water for only 28 was tested. Among the 34 that haven't: Houston, Texas; Chicago, Illinois; Miami, Florida; Baltimore, Maryland; Phoenix, Arizona; Boston, Massachusetts; and New York City's Department of Environmental Protection, which delivers water to 9 million people.

Some providers screen for only one or two pharmaceuticals, leaving open the possibility that others are present.

The AP's investigation also indicates that watersheds, the natural sources of most of the nation's water supply, also are contaminated. Tests were conducted in the watersheds of 35 of the 62 major providers surveyed by the AP, and pharmaceuticals were detected in 28.

Yet officials in six of those 28 metropolitan areas said they did not go on to test their drinking water -- Fairfax, Virginia; Montgomery County in Maryland; Omaha, Nebraska; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Santa Clara, California; and New York City.

The New York state health department and the USGS tested the source of the city's water, upstate. They found trace concentrations of heart medicine, infection fighters, estrogen, anti-convulsants, a mood stabilizer and a tranquilizer.

City water officials declined repeated requests for an interview. In a statement, they insisted that "New York City's drinking water continues to meet all federal and state regulations regarding drinking water quality in the watershed and the distribution system" -- regulations that do not address trace pharmaceuticals.

In several cases, officials at municipal or regional water providers told the AP that pharmaceuticals had not been detected, but the AP obtained the results of tests conducted by independent researchers that showed otherwise.

Of the 28 major metropolitan areas where tests were performed on drinking water supplies, only Albuquerque, New Mexico; Austin, Texas; and Virginia Beach, Virginia, said tests were negative. The drinking water in Dallas, Texas, has been tested, but officials are awaiting results. Arlington, Texas, acknowledged that traces of a pharmaceutical were detected in its drinking water but cited post-9/11 security concerns in refusing to identify the drug.

The AP also contacted 52 small water providers -- one in each state, and two each in Missouri and Texas -- that serve communities with populations around 25,000. All but one said their drinking water had not been screened for pharmaceuticals; officials in Emporia, Kansas, refused to answer AP's questions, also citing post-9/11 issues.

Rural, bottled water also unchecked

Rural consumers who draw water from their own wells aren't in the clear either, experts say.

Even users of bottled water and home filtration systems don't necessarily avoid exposure. Bottlers, some of which simply repackage tap water, do not typically treat or test for pharmaceuticals, according to the industry's main trade group. The same goes for the makers of home filtration systems.

Contamination is not confined to the United States. More than 100 different pharmaceuticals have been detected in lakes, rivers, reservoirs and streams throughout the world. Studies have detected pharmaceuticals in waters throughout Asia, Australia, Canada and Europe -- even in Swiss lakes and the North Sea.

In the United States, the problem isn't confined to surface waters. Pharmaceuticals also permeate aquifers deep underground, the source of 40 percent of the nation's water supply. Federal scientists who drew water in 24 states from aquifers near contaminant sources such as landfills and animal feed lots found minuscule levels of hormones, antibiotics and other drugs.

Perhaps it's because Americans have been taking drugs -- and flushing them unmetabolized or unused -- in growing amounts. Over the past five years, the number of U.S. drug prescriptions rose 12 percent to a record 3.7 billion, while nonprescription drug purchases held steady around 3.3 billion, according to IMS Health and The Nielsen Co.

Medications not all absorbed

"People think that if they take a medication, their body absorbs it and it disappears, but of course that's not the case," said EPA scientist Christian Daughton, one of the first to draw attention to the issue of pharmaceuticals in water in the United States.

Some drugs, including widely used cholesterol fighters, tranquilizers and anti-epileptic medications, resist modern drinking water and wastewater treatment processes. Plus, the EPA says there are no sewage treatment systems specifically engineered to remove pharmaceuticals.

Veterinary drugs also play a role. Pets are now treated for a wide range of ailments -- sometimes with the same drugs as humans. The inflation-adjusted value of veterinary drugs rose by 8 percent, to $5.2 billion, over the past five years, according to an analysis of data from the Animal Health Institute.

Ask the pharmaceutical industry whether the contamination of water supplies is a problem, and officials will tell you no.

"Based on what we now know, I would say we find there's little or no risk from pharmaceuticals in the environment to human health," said microbiologist Thomas White, a consultant for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.

But at a conference last summer, Mary Buzby -- director of environmental technology for drug maker Merck & Co. Inc. -- said: "There's no doubt about it, pharmaceuticals are being detected in the environment and there is genuine concern that these compounds, in the small concentrations that they're at, could be causing impacts to human health or to aquatic organisms."

Recent laboratory research has found that small amounts of medication have affected human embryonic kidney cells, human blood cells and human breast cancer cells. The cancer cells proliferated too quickly; the kidney cells grew too slowly; and the blood cells showed biological activity associated with inflammation.

Also, pharmaceuticals in waterways are damaging wildlife across the nation and around the globe, research shows. Notably, male fish are being feminized, creating egg yolk proteins, a process usually restricted to females. Pharmaceuticals also are affecting sentinel species at the foundation of the pyramid of life -- such as earthworms in the wild and zooplankton in the laboratory, studies show.

Wildlife problems troubling

Some scientists stress that the research is extremely limited, and there are too many unknowns. They say, though, that the documented health problems in wildlife are disconcerting.

To the degree that the EPA is focused on the issue, it appears to be looking at detection. Grumbles acknowledged that just late last year the agency developed three new methods to "detect and quantify pharmaceuticals" in wastewater.

"We realize that we have a limited amount of data on the concentrations," he said. "We're going to be able to learn a lot more."

So much is unknown. Many independent scientists are skeptical that trace concentrations will ultimately prove to be harmful to humans. There's growing concern in the scientific community, though, that certain drugs -- or combinations of drugs -- may harm humans over decades because water, unlike most specific foods, is consumed in sizable amounts every day.

Our bodies may shrug off a relatively big one-time dose, yet suffer from a smaller amount delivered continuously over a half century, perhaps subtly stirring allergies or nerve damage. Pregnant women, the elderly and the very ill might be more sensitive.

"We know we are being exposed to other people's drugs through our drinking water, and that can't be good," says Dr. David Carpenter, who directs the Institute for Health and the Environment of the State University of New York at Albany.

Sounds like the title for a Philip K. Dick novel.
Can Moths Or Butterflies Remember What They Learned As Caterpillars?

ScienceDaily (Mar. 8, 2008) — Butterflies and moths are well known for their striking metamorphosis from crawling caterpillars to winged adults. In light of this radical change, not just in body form, but also in lifestyle, diet and dependence on particular sensory cues, it would seem unlikely that learned associations or memories formed at the larval or caterpillar stage could be accessible to the adult moth or butterfly. However, scientists at Georgetown University recently discovered that a moth can indeed remember what it learned as a caterpillar.

The Georgetown researchers found that tobacco hornworm caterpillars could be trained to avoid particular odors delivered in association with a mild shock. When adult moths emerged from the pupae of trained caterpillars, they also avoided the odors, showing that they retained their larval memory. The Georgetown University study is the first to demonstrate conclusively that associative memory can survive metamorphosis in Lepidoptera--the order of insects that includes moths and butterflies--and provokes new questions about the organization and persistence of the central nervous system during metamorphosis.

"The intriguing idea that a caterpillar's experiences can persist in the adult butterfly or moth captures the imagination, as it challenges a broadly-held view of metamorphosis -- that the larva essentially turns to soup and its components are entirely rebuilt as a butterfly," says senior author Martha Weiss, an associate professor of Biology at Georgetown University.

"Scientists have been interested in whether memory can survive metamorphosis for over a hundred years," says first author Doug Blackiston, who completed the interdisciplinary research while earning a PhD in Biology from Georgetown University in the labs of developmental biologist Elena Casey and behavioral ecologist Martha Weiss. The brain and nervous system of caterpillars is dramatically reorganized during the pupal stage and it has not been clear whether memory could survive such drastic changes.

The findings of the Georgetown researchers suggest the retention of memory is dependent on the maturity of the developing caterpillars' brains. Caterpillars younger than three weeks of age learned to avoid an odor, but could not recall the information as adults, whereas older caterpillars, conditioned in the final larval stage before pupation, learned to avoid the odor and recalled the information as adults. In addition, the results have both ecological and evolutionary implications, as retention of memory through metamorphosis could allow a female butterfly or other insect to lay her eggs on the type of host plant that she herself had fed on as a larva, a behavior that could shape habitat selection and eventually lead to development of a new species.

While most research on learning and memory in insects has centered on social insects, such as honeybees or ants, Weiss' lab is particularly interested in solitary insects, such as butterflies, praying mantids, and mud-dauber wasps. Weiss and her colleagues will continue to study how these self-sufficient, multitasking insects use learning and memory skills to adapt to their environments.

This study was farther afield from the neural cell specification research that is ongoing in Casey's lab. Casey, associate professor of Biology at Georgetown, focuses on identifying the signals that are required to direct a cell to develop into a neuron and determining how the complex human central nervous system evolved.

Blackiston, now conducting postdoctoral work at the Forsyth Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology and the Department of Developmental Biology at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, is currently examining learning and memory in aquatic vertebrates.

More evidence that some people area more like this than that, sometimes.
Profound Impact Of Our Unconscious On Reaching Goals Revealed

ScienceDaily (Mar. 8, 2008) — Whether you are a habitual list maker, or you prefer to keep your tasks in your head, everyone pursues their goals in this ever changing, chaotic environment. We are often aware of our conscious decisions that bring us closer to reaching our goals, however to what extent can we count on our unconscious processes to pilot us toward our destined future?

People can learn rather complex structures of the environment and do so implicitly, or without intention. Could this unconscious learning be better if we really wanted it to?

Hebrew University psychologists, Baruch Eitam, Ran Hassin and Yaacov Schul, examined the benefit of non-conscious goal pursuit (moving toward a desired goal without being aware of doing so) in new environments. Existing theory suggests that non-conscious goal pursuit only reproduces formerly learned actions, therefore ineffective in mastering a new skill. Eitam and colleagues argue the opposite: that non-conscious goal pursuit can help people achieve their goals, even in a new environment, in which they have no prior experience.

In the first of two experiments, Eitam and colleagues had participants complete a word search task. One half of the participants’ puzzles included words associated with achievement (e.g. strive, succeed, first, and win), while the other half performed a motivationally neutral puzzle including words such as, carpet, diamond and hat. Then participants performed a computerized simulation of running a sugar factory.

Their goal in the simulation was to produce a specific amount of sugar. They were only told that they could change the number of employees in the factory. Although participants were not told about the complex relationship that existed between the number of employees and past production levels (and could not verbalize it after the experiment had ended); they gradually grew better in controlling the factory.

As predicted, the non-consciously motivated participants (the group that had previously found words associated with achievement) learned to control the factory better than the control group.

In a second experiment the researchers replicated the findings by having participants perform a simple task of responding to a circle that repeatedly appeared in one of four locations. They were not told that the circle (sometimes) appeared in a fixed sequence of locations. Non-consciously motivated participants had again (nonconsciously) learned the sequence better than control participants.

“Taken together, both studies suggest that the powerful, unintentional, mechanism of implicit learning is related to our non-conscious wanting and works towards attaining our non-conscious goals,” the researchers write. These results, which appear in the March issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, reveal an unconscious process that has both an advantage over conscious processing and an ability to serve a person’s current goals. Such unconscious processes may be responsible for far more of human ability than is yet recognized.

Kind of like “Transformers,” only bigger
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- Astronauts bound for orbit this week will dabble in science fiction, assembling a "monstrous" two-armed space station robot that will rise like Frankenstein from its transport bed.

Endeavour commander Dominic Gorie, left, and pilot Gregory Johnson will help assemble a space robot.

Putting together Dextre, the robot, will be one of the main jobs for the seven Endeavour astronauts, who are scheduled to blast off in the wee hours of Tuesday, less than three weeks after the last shuttle flight.

They're also delivering the first piece of Japan's massive Kibo space station lab, a float-in closet for storing tools, experiments and spare parts. For the first time, each of the five major international space station partners will own a piece of the real estate.

At 16 days, the mission will be NASA's longest space station trip ever and will include five spacewalks, the most ever performed while a shuttle is docked there. Three of those spacewalks will feature Dextre, which is sure to steal the show.

With 11-foot arms, a shoulder span of nearly 8 feet and a height of 12 feet, the Canadian Space Agency's Dextre -- short for dexterous and pronounced like Dexter -- is more than a little intimidating, at least for astronaut Garrett Reisman.

"Now I wouldn't go as far to say that we're worried it's going to go run amok and take over the space station or turn evil or anything because we all know how it's operated and it doesn't have a lot of its own intelligence," Reisman told The Associated Press last week.

"But I'll tell you something ... He's enormous and to see him with his giant arms, it is a little scary. It's a little monstrous, it is."
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Dextre will be flying up aboard Endeavour in pieces, and it will be up to a team of spacewalking astronauts to assemble the 3,400-pound robot and attach it to the outside of the space station. That job will fall to Reisman, Michael Foreman and Richard Linnehan.

"I feel kind of like dad on Christmas Eve, you know, opening up this present and trying to put it together for the son or daughter and going, 'Whoa, what have I gotten myself into here with this 'some assembly required' part of the space station," Foreman said.

Reisman, who will be moving into the space station, can't wait to see Dextre rise from its shuttle transport pallet, rotating up "almost like it's Frankenstein's monster coming alive."

In reality, there's nothing sinister about Dextre. The robot, in fact, was once in the running to be the Hubble Space Telescope's savior.

Following the 2003 Columbia disaster, NASA canceled the last remaining Hubble repair mission by shuttle astronauts because of safety concerns, and considered sending Dextre up to do the job. The shuttle flight was restored after a change at NASA's helm -- it's scheduled for late summer -- and Dextre went back to being a space station assistant.

Dextre -- which cost more than $200 million -- was created by the same Canadian team that built the space shuttle and space station robot arms.

Equipped with a tool holster, Dextre is designed to assist spacewalking astronauts and, ultimately, to take over some of their dangerous outdoor work.

Dextre can pivot at the waist, and has seven joints per arm. Its hands, or grippers, have built-in socket wrenches, cameras and lights. Only one arm is designed to move at a time to keep the robot stable and avoid a two-arm collision. The robot has no face or legs, and with its long arms certainly doesn't look human.

Space station astronauts will be able to control Dextre, as will flight controllers on the ground. The robot will be attached at times to the end of the space station arm, and also be able to ride by itself along the space station arm's railway.

Canadian officials said they're convinced Dextre could have pulled off the Hubble repair job, and should have no problems replacing old batteries and other space station parts.

"It's quite surprising what a robot like Dextre can do with its sense of touch and its precision," said Daniel Rey, a Canadian Space Agency engineer who heads the project.

Dextre has only three tools, for now, versus the more than 100 tools available to spacewalking astronauts, Rey said. It will probably take months to learn how to properly use the robot; its first real job could come next year.

Linnehan, who worked on Hubble in 2002, wonders just how much Dextre will be able to do.

Even though it's suited for space station maintenance, astronauts are faster, Linnehan said. As for Hubble, he said Dextre cannot compare to a human repairman because it lacks fine motor control, and cannot think and react to problems that might crop up.

That said, Linnehan acknowledges it's "a cool project" that reminds him of Japanese animation shows from decades past, namely Gigantor the space-age robot. NASA officials agree that a big part of Dextre is learning how robots operate in space, for future exploration.

Dextre, by the way, isn't necessarily a "he."

"I tend to use 'he' because I think Dextre is a masculine name," Rey said. "But it's a robot. It's tele-operated. It doesn't have artificial intelligence yet. So I need to be more careful when I say 'he.'
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- Astronauts bound for orbit this week will dabble in science fiction, assembling a "monstrous" two-armed space station robot that will rise like Frankenstein from its transport bed.
art.space.shuttle.ap.jpg

Endeavour commander Dominic Gorie, left, and pilot Gregory Johnson will help assemble a space robot.

Putting together Dextre, the robot, will be one of the main jobs for the seven Endeavour astronauts, who are scheduled to blast off in the wee hours of Tuesday, less than three weeks after the last shuttle flight.

They're also delivering the first piece of Japan's massive Kibo space station lab, a float-in closet for storing tools, experiments and spare parts. For the first time, each of the five major international space station partners will own a piece of the real estate.

At 16 days, the mission will be NASA's longest space station trip ever and will include five spacewalks, the most ever performed while a shuttle is docked there. Three of those spacewalks will feature Dextre, which is sure to steal the show.

With 11-foot arms, a shoulder span of nearly 8 feet and a height of 12 feet, the Canadian Space Agency's Dextre -- short for dexterous and pronounced like Dexter -- is more than a little intimidating, at least for astronaut Garrett Reisman.

"Now I wouldn't go as far to say that we're worried it's going to go run amok and take over the space station or turn evil or anything because we all know how it's operated and it doesn't have a lot of its own intelligence," Reisman told The Associated Press last week.

"But I'll tell you something ... He's enormous and to see him with his giant arms, it is a little scary. It's a little monstrous, it is."

Dextre will be flying up aboard Endeavour in pieces, and it will be up to a team of spacewalking astronauts to assemble the 3,400-pound robot and attach it to the outside of the space station. That job will fall to Reisman, Michael Foreman and Richard Linnehan.

"I feel kind of like dad on Christmas Eve, you know, opening up this present and trying to put it together for the son or daughter and going, 'Whoa, what have I gotten myself into here with this 'some assembly required' part of the space station," Foreman said.

Reisman, who will be moving into the space station, can't wait to see Dextre rise from its shuttle transport pallet, rotating up "almost like it's Frankenstein's monster coming alive."

In reality, there's nothing sinister about Dextre. The robot, in fact, was once in the running to be the Hubble Space Telescope's savior.

Following the 2003 Columbia disaster, NASA canceled the last remaining Hubble repair mission by shuttle astronauts because of safety concerns, and considered sending Dextre up to do the job. The shuttle flight was restored after a change at NASA's helm -- it's scheduled for late summer -- and Dextre went back to being a space station assistant.

Dextre -- which cost more than $200 million -- was created by the same Canadian team that built the space shuttle and space station robot arms.

Equipped with a tool holster, Dextre is designed to assist spacewalking astronauts and, ultimately, to take over some of their dangerous outdoor work.

Dextre can pivot at the waist, and has seven joints per arm. Its hands, or grippers, have built-in socket wrenches, cameras and lights. Only one arm is designed to move at a time to keep the robot stable and avoid a two-arm collision. The robot has no face or legs, and with its long arms certainly doesn't look human.

Space station astronauts will be able to control Dextre, as will flight controllers on the ground. The robot will be attached at times to the end of the space station arm, and also be able to ride by itself along the space station arm's railway.

Canadian officials said they're convinced Dextre could have pulled off the Hubble repair job, and should have no problems replacing old batteries and other space station parts.

"It's quite surprising what a robot like Dextre can do with its sense of touch and its precision," said Daniel Rey, a Canadian Space Agency engineer who heads the project.

Dextre has only three tools, for now, versus the more than 100 tools available to spacewalking astronauts, Rey said. It will probably take months to learn how to properly use the robot; its first real job could come next year.

Linnehan, who worked on Hubble in 2002, wonders just how much Dextre will be able to do.

Even though it's suited for space station maintenance, astronauts are faster, Linnehan said. As for Hubble, he said Dextre cannot compare to a human repairman because it lacks fine motor control, and cannot think and react to problems that might crop up.

That said, Linnehan acknowledges it's "a cool project" that reminds him of Japanese animation shows from decades past, namely Gigantor the space-age robot. NASA officials agree that a big part of Dextre is learning how robots operate in space, for future exploration.

Dextre, by the way, isn't necessarily a "he."

"I tend to use 'he' because I think Dextre is a masculine name," Rey said. "But it's a robot. It's tele-operated. It doesn't have artificial intelligence yet. So I need to be more careful when I say 'he.'

“Danger Will Robinson, danger.

Making Science More Better For You on 03/0708

2008-03-07T13:08:00.000-08:00

Headline of the day

Mayor Resigns, Claims Abduction By Satan Worshippers...(Drudge)

Never tried using that excuse before. How did that work out for you?.

Making Science More Better For You on 03/06/08

2008-03-06T12:47:00.000-08:00

Headline of the day

One-legged chicken gets cancer treatment (CNN)

The line for the "crossing the road" jokes forms to the left.

Making Science More Better For You on 03/03/08

2008-03-03T13:04:00.000-08:00

Headline of the day

Man Dies After Falling On Knife While Cooking (WYFF.com)